Axel Dumas, chief executive of the French luxury group Hermès, said on Thursday that Jeffrey Epstein had pushed for a meeting in 2013. Epstein even went so far as to invite himself to visit the company’s workshop in the Paris region.
“I only had one contact with Jeffrey Epstein. That was in March 2013 during a visit to the Hermès workshops in Pantin near Paris,” said Axel Dumas when asked by AFP at a press conference on the sidelines of the publication of the group’s 2025 annual results. “He was not on the guest list and joined a group of guests of Woody Allen and his wife without prior notice.”
A photo from the Epstein files shows Axel Dumas together with the American director Woody Allen and the American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“We took the opportunity to take a snapshot, which he apparently kept carefully,” emphasized Axel Dumas. “And in fact he had a bad reputation,” he added. “After that he tried to meet me three times, which I always refused,” explained the Hermès CEO.
Emails sent by Axel Dumas’ assistant show that the Hermès boss declined several invitations from Jeffrey Epstein. The AFP was able to view these emails in the Epstein files made available by the American justice system.
“Finally, in 2016, he took part in a charity auction and bought a lot donated by our company, an internship in a workshop. When we found out that he was the highest bidder, we declined and compensated the charity with a corresponding amount,” explained Axel Dumas.
In 2012, Jeffrey Epstein had already asked Hermès to redesign the interior of his plane, ‘and we refused,'” said the luxury group’s CEO. “I can’t tell you exactly what we knew or didn’t know about him, because I don’t remember 13 years ago. But he already had a hideous reputation,” he explained.
“I would like to add that we were in the middle of the LVMH affair,” he stressed. LVMH and Hermès were in conflict at the time. The world’s leading luxury group had secretly acquired the capital of the saddlery and leather goods manufacturer.
“I was already very suspicious of Eric Freymond’s dealings with my uncle and we didn’t need a shady financier,” he added.
Nicolas Puech, Axel Dumas’ uncle, had filed a lawsuit against his now deceased former asset manager Eric Freymond. Puech believed that the financier had used sophisticated contrivances to make his shares disappear. One of the unresolved questions is whether these shares were sold to LVMH for its covert entry into Hermès. The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) condemned the luxury giant led by Bernard Arnault for this entry.
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