HONG KONG — LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury goods company, said on Monday that it would buy the jeweler Tiffany & Company for $16.2 billion, in the biggest deal ever agreed to in the luxury sector.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to welcome Tiffany, a company with an unparalleled heritage and unique position in the global jewelry world, to the LVMH family,” Bernard Arnault, the chairman and chief executive of LVMH said in a statement.

The acquisition would add a prominent American name to the LVMH stable of brands, which includes Dior, Givenchy, Fendi, Dom Pérignon and Bulgari, and help propel it beyond traditional soft luxury goods and into the so-called hard luxury sector of watches and jewelry.

The deal will give both LVMH and Tiffany the firepower to grow in China, where they will look bring more of their goods to mainland consumers in an effort to tap into their spending power. Chinese tourist spending has been hit hard by the depreciation of the renminbi, the trade war between the United States and China, and protests in Hong Kong.