Nicolas Puech, one of the heirs of the French luxury goods group Hermès, calls for the mysterious disappearance of his shares. The occasion is the death of his former asset manager Eric Freymond. As reported by the Tribune de Genève and Le Point last week, Mr. Freymond, against which Mr. Puech had filed a lawsuit, died.
“With grief I found out about Mr. Freymond’s death under tragic circumstances,” said Mr. Puech in a statement that was sent to the AFP, according to his lawyer. “I very much hope that the circumstances of his death will be clarified by the Swiss authorities as soon as possible,” he added. He expressed “his deepest sympathy for the family” – “despite the public and judicial conflicts”. Mr. Freymond was “a friend and consultant for 25 years with whom the collaboration always took place in full trust”.
“Unfortunately, our relationship has broken due to extremely serious facts in connection with my six million shares of the Hermès International,” continued Puech. “Complete clarification still has to be created here.”
The 82-year-old Nicolas Puech is a great-grandson of the founder of the renowned leather goods company based on Rue Du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. He had inherited six million shares, which corresponds to 5.76 percent of Hermès capital – a value of almost 14.5 billion euros in the current course.
One of the still unexplained questions in this complex case is whether these stocks were sold or not, as Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, secretly built a participation in his competitor Hermès.
The matter took a new turn in 2023. Mr. Puech, who is considered disputed with the rest of his family, said he was ruined. He accused his former asset manager of having used complex constructions to make his shares disappear and filed a lawsuit. However, Mr. Freymond freely spoke the Geneva judiciary. Mr. Puech, who lives in Switzerland, then submitted a similar lawsuit in France.
“The search for the truth must have priority” and “are determined by the judiciary with calm and care,” says Puech’s explanation.
In response to the death of her client, Mr. Freymond’s lawyers said last week that he was “broken by the violence of the suspicion raised against him”.
This article was used with digital tools translated.
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