Billionaire Hermès Heir, 82, Who Planned to Give Fortune to His Gardener May No Longer Hold $16.2B in Shares, Exec Says
Sixth-generation Thierry Hermès descendant Axel Dumas shared the news on an earnings call about heir Nicolas Puech, per Business of Fashion
NEED TO KNOW
- Hermès chairman Axel Dumas believes an heir to the luxury retailer, Nicolas Puech, no longer holds his $16.2 billion shares, per Business of Fashion
- Dumas reportedly shared the news on an earnings call
- Puech left the Hermès supervisory board in 2014 when LVMH acquired 23% of Hermès
A Hermès executive is offering some insight into the ongoing legal battle over the luxury goods company's shares.
Per Business of Fashion, executive chairman Axel Dumas shared that he has reason to believe that 82-year-old heir Nicolas Puech no longer holds his $16.2 worth of shares in the retailer. The outlet also notes that Puech's former wealth manager died last week, further complicating the issue.
“I’ve had the certainty for a long time that Nicolas Puech no longer holds his shares,” Dumas told reporters July 30 on an earnings call, per BOF. “This is why we’ve started legal proceedings.”
Dumas, who is a sixth-generation descendant of the company's founder Thierry Hermès, added that he doesn’t believe the shares can be recovered.
Puech is the fifth-generation heir of Hermès, which was founded in Paris in 1837 and has become most known for its Birkin bags. He left the supervisory board in 2014 on shaky terms when LVMH acquired 23% of Hermès, according to Fortune. Per BOF, it was not made clear what would come of Puech's shares.
“He resigned because he has felt for several years beleaguered by members of his family, who have attacked him on several fronts, not only regarding LVMH,” a spokesperson for Puech said at the time, Fashion Network reported via AFP.
“He has had some very bad experiences and felt very badly and felt harshly criticized on numerous occasions, even while he is very attached to Hermès.”
In December 2023, Swiss publication Tribune de Genève, as cited by the New York Post, reported that Puech was planning to designate his “former gardener and handyman,” an unnamed 51-year-old man as his heir. Puech is unmarried and has no children of his own.
The publication reported that Puech could be passing on half of his inheritance to his former gardener. At the time, he was was allegedly still rearranging his benefactors if his estate and could pass on the rest of his money elsewhere.
According to Tribune de Genève, Puech has already begun the legal proceedings to make the man his heir. The unidentified man was reportedly of Moroccan descent, married to a woman from Spain and has a family of his own. He also stood to inherit property from Puech in Marrakesh, Morocco, and Montreux, Switzerland, valued at $5.9 million.
Per BOF, Puech accused his former wealth adviser Eric Freymond of mishandling his holdings in 2023. Last week, Freymond died in Switzerland.
