Nicolas PuechThe last descendant of the founder of the French fashion house Hermès wants to bequeath part of his billion-dollar fortune to his domestic worker, a 51-year-old Moroccan. A decision that causes a legal dispute with a Swiss NGO, the Isocrate association, the previous recipient of the will.
The legal dispute Puech has also found a workaround to make it more difficult to challenge the will and wants to adopt the 51-year-old, who is married to a Spanish woman and has two children. This is a promising fight
Isocrates Foundation, an NGO he founded against fake news and the spectacularization of news, which was originally listed in the billionaire’s will as the heir to his vast fortune. In an interview with the Tribune de Genève, Secretary General Nicolas Borsinger speaks of a “sudden and unilateral cancellation of a successor agreement, which is considered null and unfounded”.
The Heritage According to estimates by the Swiss weekly newspaper Balance, the Hermès heir’s assets amount to around
10 billion francsPuech owns it
5.7% of the share capital of the French giant. A capital that makes him the group’s main shareholder. Then there is the real estate. In fact, Nicolas Puech lives in a luxurious residence in La Fouly, a municipality of just 66 inhabitants in the canton of Valais, located at 1500 meters above sea level. The billionaire had already given his domestic worker and his family, with whom he had developed a closer bond during the lockdown period, a property in Marrakesh worth around one and a half million euros and a villa in Montreux starting at 4 million. In short, Puech’s death promises to be a legal battle that could drag on for years, even though the billionaire has decided to adopt his handyman, whom he already considers like a son. According to Swiss law, it will be difficult for the scion of the House of Hermès to change the inheritance structure without the consent of the Isocrate association.
No bypassing incompetent ones However, behind Puech’s decision to change the will, which was not at all welcomed by the rest of the family, the hypothesis of evasion by an incompetent person could not be suspected. It would therefore not be a case similar to that of Liliane Bettencourt, daughter of the founder of L’Oréal, or more recently to that of Gina Lollobrigida. The heir, son of Yvonne Hermès, is 80 years old and still enjoys good physical and mental health and no one, at least for the moment, questions his judgment.