(BFM Bourse) – At Friday's close, the number one luxury company had once again become the largest European capitalization, ahead of the Danish group Novo Nordisk. The two companies displayed opposing dynamics, which allowed LVMH to fall significantly behind.
LVMH took back a crown that the French group had abandoned in the fall of 2023. The number one luxury brand once again became, at Friday's close, the largest European group on the stock market, ahead of the Danish Novo Nordisk, which had deprived it of of this honorary title a year and a half ago.
Friday evening, LVMH had a market capitalization of 358.16 billion dollars (or approximately 347 billion euros) compared to 352.91 billion dollars, according to companiesmarketcap.com.
Obviously, this gap remains tiny – around 2% – and Novo Nordisk could very well get back ahead this Monday, January 20 or in the coming days. For now, LVMH is down 0.2% around 10:45 a.m. while the Danish group is up 0.2% in Copenhagen.
But perhaps more than the symbolic first place of LVMH, it is the totally contradictory dynamic between the two companies which proves impressive.
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Disappointing clinical trials
In December, the gap between the two market capitalizations exceeded $100 billion, an impressive gap. In the space of a month and a half, the situation was completely turned upside down. Since the beginning of December, LVMH has gained 16.7% while Novo Nordisk has fallen 24%.
The Danish company suffered especially on December 20, a session during which its stock fell by 20.7%, following disappointing results from a phase III clinical trial (the last step before the potential marketing of a drug). ).
This clinical trial focused on Cagrisema, a potential new anti-obesity treatment from the Danish group, which combines two molecules to reduce blood sugar, namely semaglutide and cagrilintide. The results of this trial showed that 22.7% of patients treated with Cagrisema experienced significant weight loss after 68 weeks, a rate which fell to 20.4% when including patients who discontinued treatment during the course of treatment. road.
These figures were disappointing, as the company was targeting a rate of over 25%. Moreover, this rate showed only a modest improvement compared to American competitor Eli Lilly's Zepbound, another anti-obesity drug. Zepbound had shown a significant weight loss rate over a comparable period of around 20%, according to Barclays.
Price drop in sight in the United States
Friday January 20, Novo Nordisk lost another 4.3%, the decline which caused it to lose the status of the largest European capitalization (the same day LVMH lost 0.8%). The Danish pharmaceutical group suffered from reports that its two anti-obesity and anti-diabetes blockbusters, Wegovy and Ozempic, were among the treatments targeted for price negotiations under the American Medicare program for 2027. Which means, in short, that the price of the drug could be reduced.
-According to Bloomberg, prices for these Novo Nordisk treatments amount to $1,000 per month and sales of Novo Nordisk passed through the Medicare program represent about 10% of the Danish company's total revenue, according to the data. from Leerink Partners, cited by the agency. The last round of Medicare price negotiations resulted in an average 22% drop in targeted drug prices, according to Bloomberg.
“Although the inclusion of semaglutide in the list of drugs to be negotiated for Medicare is not a surprise, the double challenge of limited production capacities and a capped price in the United States, the world's leading obesity market, makes the Market fear an impact on forecasts and a revision of objectives”, explains Invest Securities.
On the other hand, LVMH is on the rise and is up 8.8% over the whole of 2025, recording the largest increase in the CAC 40. The luxury group was helped last week by the excellent results of its Swiss comparable Richemont. The Swiss establishment, which some rumors sometimes send into the arms of LVMH or Kering, recorded thunderous activity in the quarter ended in December, with sales up 10% excluding currency effects, when analysts were counting on an increase limited to 1%.
Richemont puts luxury back into orbit
Which called into question the market's caution regarding the outlook for luxury. “The majority of investors view the 2024 weakness as largely cyclical in nature, but expect it to continue at least through the first half of 2025. The 10 percentage point improvement sequentially (quarter-on-quarter) for Richemont, combined with stronger growth in all regions, quickly called this reasoning into question,” Deutsche Bank points out. “Richemont's results confirm the thesis of a short-term improvement in the luxury sector,” judges Royal Bank of Canada in a note published this Monday.
The icing on the cake for LVMH: the same day Bank of America raised its opinion on the stock to buy. Anticipating a polarization in luxury, with even stronger winners and even weaker losers, the bank judged that LVMH, given its good record in this area, has a good chance of outperforming the luxury recovery in 2025. The American bank believes that the number one luxury company will be able, in this perspective, to rely on its flagship brand Louis Vuitton. The American bank praises the strategy of the Parisian label, which succeeds in reinventing itself, but also in attracting and retaining a new clientele thanks to products at lower prices than the average for its range.
LVMH will publish its annual results on January 28. Given its recent surge in the market, the luxury group will have little right to disappoint the market under penalty of heavy sanctions.
Julien Marion – ©2025 BFM Bourse
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