Looking at yesterday’s Hermès results, which showed a 41 per cent rise in net profit, I wonder if the much-bemoaned 22 per cent stake that luxury conglomerate LVMH built up in the group has actually been good for it. This is opposed to the end-of-the-world, barbarians-at-the-gate scenario the Hermès folks were painting when LVMH initially increased its stake.

I mean this in a motivational sort of way, you understand: I don’t think that LVMH has changed the way Hermès runs its business in any meaningful way. And as the FT’s Lex column points out today,

Minority positions often result in a discount. Hermès became expensive because it was a takeout candidate. While the family’s holding company now protects it, the high valuation lingers – perhaps helped by the hope that minority shares are mopped up.

But when a brand (or a person, for that matter) perceives itself as being under attack in any way, it often forces it to:

1. take a close look at itself and what makes it special and/or different;
2. prove to the world that the way it has done things is the best way and that the interloper doesn’t have any right to suggest otherwise. (Whether the interloper actually has this right not is besides the point. Its mere presence hints that it might make changes even if it says it won’t).

Now, does that sound familiar? It’s pretty basic psychology. And it’s pretty much playing out before our eyes.