LVMH looks to shrink its luxury empire
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US fuel exports have surged to a record level, and hedge funds had their best month since 2020. Plus, Samsung Electronics is locked in a feud with its workers over how to share the spoils of the AI-driven semiconductor boom, and LVMH is considering selling some of its iconic brands.
Mentioned in this podcast:
US fuel exports hit record in boon for oil companies and threat to Trump
LVMH goes from buyer to seller as luxury’s winter drags on
Tech rally hands hedge funds biggest gains since 2020
Samsung workers demand bigger slice of surging AI profits
Note: The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts
Today’s FT News Briefing was hosted and edited by Marc Filippino, and produced by Katya Kumkova, Saffeya Ahmed, and Sonja Hutson. Our show was mixed by Kelly Garry. Additional help from Gavin Kallmann, Michael Lello and David da Silva. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s Global Head of Audio. The show’s theme music is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, May 7th, and this is your FT News Briefing. |
| 0:08.7 | American Fuel is making its way around the globe, and hedge funds are really enjoying last month's tech stock rally. |
| 0:15.1 | Plus luxury conglomerate, LVMH, is trying to declutter its wardrobe. |
| 0:19.6 | They own 75 different brands spanning hotels and fashion brands. |
| 0:24.3 | They own media houses, and they are now sort of making hard decisions about what actually |
| 0:28.7 | still fits. |
| 0:30.6 | I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:44.9 | Okay. The U.S. is exporting more fuel than ever. It's sent over 8.2 million barrels of refined fuels overseas every day last week. |
| 0:50.4 | That includes gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. |
| 0:53.4 | And it's a 20% increase from the same time last year, |
| 0:56.0 | according to U.S. energy data. It's to make up for the shortages caused by the Iran War. |
| 1:01.1 | Asia and Europe have been hit especially hard. Everyone's holding their breath, as Tehran |
| 1:06.1 | considers a peace proposal from the U.S., but things are on shaky ground. Israel struck Beirut on Wednesday |
| 1:11.8 | despite a ceasefire, and the U.S. hit an Iranian ship, it says, violated Washington's blockade |
| 1:17.0 | of the country's ports. Still, the cost of Brent crude dropped below $100 a barrel at one point |
| 1:22.1 | yesterday in anticipation of peace. The S&P 500 closed about one and a half percent higher. |
| 1:33.5 | Thank you. patient of peace. The S&P 500 closed about one and a half percent higher. Hedge funds are sitting pretty right now thanks to a tech stock rally. That's led to hedge funds |
| 1:38.2 | having their best monthly performance since 2020. I'm joined now by the FTs Custas Morcellus to |
| 1:43.7 | learn more. Hi, Custas. Hi, thanks for |
| 1:46.0 | having me. Good to have you. So give us a sense of scale here. So it's been a huge rally. |
| 1:51.7 | We saw some very strong earnings from big AI companies like Alphabet for the first quarter, and they |
| 1:59.4 | signaled a huge amount of spending hundreds of |
... |
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