Hermès heir will reportedly leave multi-billion fortune to gardener
In what reads like a plot for a melodramatic soap opera, the 80-year-old heir to one of the world's most recognizable fashion houses is set to leave his billion-dollar fortune to his gardener.
Citing a report from the Swiss publication Tribune de Genève, the New York Post reports that Nicolas Puech, a fifth-generation heir to an Hermès fortune valued at over $220 billion (P12,254,110,000,000 based on current exchange rates), is set to name a 51-year-old man as his heir. The unnamed man was his “former gardener and handyman” and is of Moroccan descent. The man has a family of his own and is married to a woman from Spain.
Nicolas Puech, who is unmarried and with no children of his own, currently owns anywhere between five to six percent of Hermès. This makes his net worth at least $10 billion (P557,160,000,000 based on current exchange rates). Tribune de Genève claims half of this will go to his former gardener and that the former gardener will also inherit properties in Marrakesh, Morocco, and Montreux, Switzerland from Nicolas Puech. The properties are valued at $5.9 million (P328,809,950).
Nicolas Puech hopes to accomplish this succession plan by adopting his gardener, which the New York Post notes will face considerable legal hurdles in Switzerland, which rarely sees adult adoption. Nicolas Puech had also earlier committed his fortune to the Isocrates Foundation which he founded to combat misinformation. The foundation had already released a statement with Fortune that opposes a cancellation of the earlier inheritance contract.
Nicolas Puech fell out with his family back in 2014 after Louis Vuitton Monet Hennessy acquired a 23 percent stake in Hermès, resulting in him resigning from the fashion house's supervisory board.
Hermès isn't the only high fashion house that is a family affair. LVMH is owned by the Arnault family, and back in January there was a shuffling of power as Bernard Arnault's daughter Delphine was named as Dior's chief executive and chair. She had previously been the executive vice-president of Louis Vuitton.
