By
AFP Translated by
Nicola Mira Published January 7, 2025 Reading time
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Mystery surrounding shares owned by Hermès heir fuels speculation

By
AFP Translated by
Nicola Mira Published
January 7, 2025

As one of the heirs of luxury group Hermès claims his fortune has vanished, the question is whether he has sold part of his shares to LVMH, or placed them in a trust. The mystery remains unresolved, according to an investigation by Swiss press group Tamedia, which has unearthed several possible leads.

Tamedia, which notably owns Geneva newspaper La Tribune de Genève, published a long report on Sunday about the intricate case of the Hermès shares owned by Nicolas Puech. The latter, a great-grandson of the French leather goods label's founder, inherited more than 6 million shares, equivalent to a 5.76% stake in Hermès. At the current price, Puech’s shares are worth CHF13 billion (€13.8 billion), and Puech is claiming they have been stolen from him.

Tamedia wrote that the investigation has pored over “hundreds of pages of legal and financial documents” which “do not reveal where the shares are now but, as though in a treasure hunt, map the sequence of events that led to their disappearance.”