LVMH sour on Tiffany sweetener

A proposal by Louis Vuitton owner LVMH to buy Tiffany & Co. appears to be at a standstill.

Execs of the French luxury goods giant are bristling at calls by Wall Street analysts for LVMH to significantly sweeten its $120-a-share offer for the famous jeweler — claiming the premium it has offered is actually far higher than the Street realizes, sources tell The Post.

That’s because LVMH made its $14.5 billion proposal more than a week before details of the deal were leaked to the press

— and the stock rose significantly in that time. A top LVMH executive — who was only described to The Post as not corporate boss Bernard Arnault — flew to New York on Friday, Oct. 18, to present the buyout plan to Tiffany counterpart Alessandro Bogliolo at a private meeting, sources said.

That day, Tiffany’s stock closed at $88.49 a share. It ticked up over the next week, on triple the volume in some days, to close Friday Oct. 25 at $98.55. That weekend, details of the deal were reported by Bloomberg News.

Based on the Oct. 18 price, LVMH offered to buy Tiffany at a 36 percent premium — not the 22 percent premium suggest by the Oct. 25 closing price, sources said.

The stock has risen even further since then. After LVMH’s $120-a-share offer was confirmed on Monday, Tiffany shares closed at $129.72 a share as investors banked on the company, which also owns Dom Perignon champagne, upping the ante.

But LVMH insiders claim the company will not raise its offer by more than $5 a share.

“Arnault is likely only to increase his offer by a small amount,” a source said, referring to Arnault, who is also the richest man in Europe. “They feel they do not need the asset,” this person added.

Tiffany didn’t immediately return a request for comment. An LVMH spokesperson declined to comment.