Beyond the show — LVMH · Bernard Arnault · 1984

You can stay in property, buy Boussac and run it as the textile group the government wants, or buy Boussac for the two names inside it and sell the rest. Which?

You are 35 and run your family's construction and property firm in northern France, with three years of building condominiums in Florida behind you. You know nothing about fashion. The Boussac group — once the largest textile business in France — is in receivership. The state has put around a billion francs into it and the Socialist government wants a buyer who will keep the mills open and the jobs in place. Inside the wreck are loss-making textile plants, the Conforama furniture chain, a nappy brand, the Le Bon Marché department store, and a couture house called Christian Dior that earns most of its money licensing its name to two hundred manufacturers of ties and tights. Antoine Bernheim at Lazard will arrange the financing if you put in your family's money, reportedly about $15 million. Other bidders are circling, and they are textile people.

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