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He promised his gardener half of his fortune, $13 billion of the heir to the fashion firm Hermes 'disappears'
2024-08-09 22:49:39 / BOTA
ALFA PRESS
The heir to the fortune of the luxury fashion firm 'Hermes', who promised billions to his gardener, now fears he has little money left in the bank.
Nicolas Puech was valued by Forbes in 2024 at $13.6 billion, due to the 81-year-old's stake in the Parisian fashion house founded by his predecessor Thierry Hermès.
Five generations later and the eponymous brand, best known for its Birkin and Kelly bags, is the second most valuable company in France with a market capitalization of 230 billion euros ($248 billion).
As a result, Puech's fortune increased from $3.1 billion in 2020, quadrupling the figure four years later.
But last year the Frenchman shocked the world by saying he planned to pass half of that fortune to his gardener.
In December 2023, the Swiss newspaper Tribune de Genève reported that Puech was in the process of adopting the Moroccan gardener as his legal child and was reorganizing the benefactors of his estate.
However, it appears that the billions that Puech had promised his potential heir may no longer be his inheritance.
In a court case that ended this month, Puech said he no longer owns the assets in question, a $13 billion stake in Hermès International SCA.
Puech claims he has no idea where the assets have disappeared and claims his former wealth manager, Eric Freymond, was to blame.
The heir said most of his wealth came from Hermès shares but, according to Bloomberg, did not realize he no longer owned the shares. This is because the management of his accounts was handed over to Freymond, the wealth manager who received all of Puech's bank statements.
However, an appeals court in Geneva rejected that claim, Bloomberg reports, saying there was no evidence that Freymond had defrauded his client during the two decades they worked together.
The court added that Puech signed numerous blank documents to Freymond and willingly gave him control of his accounts, according to Bloomberg.
But it seems that the battle is not over yet. Grégoire Mangeat and Fanny Margairaz, Puech's newly appointed lawyers, told Fortune that they were "in the process of studying the criminal file in detail."
They added that they had nothing to comment further at this stage.
In a nasty rebuttal to the case, Bloomberg reported that the court found that the victim [Puech's] "gigantic deception" was undetectable to ordinary people."
Stephane Grodecki, who represented Freymond, told Fortune: "My client is shocked by his former client's accusation."
Grodecki added that his client has never dealt with the inheritance of the Hermès shares and continued: "My client will now consider all his legal options to protect his honor."
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