An heir to Hermes is trying to retrieve his allegedly lost fortune—again, though this time, he’s going after Bernard Arnault.
Nicolas Peuch is suing the CEO of LVMH, as well as the luxury conglomerate itself, to try to recoup his allegedly lost stake in Hermes, worth a total of $US16.3 billion ($14 billion). According to Bloomberg, the 81-year-old filed the lawsuit in a Paris civil court last May.
Peuch claims that his former wealth adviser, Eric Freimond, sold his Hermès shares, totaling somewhere in the region of six million, to Arnault without his knowledge. According to Bloomberg, the transaction reportedly took place in the 2010s with LVMH Titan. Peuch claims he put Freimond in charge of his shares, the whereabouts of which he no longer knows. A fifth-generation member of the Hermes family also sued Freimond, who died last July.
LMVH and Arnault denied Pew’s claims in a statement, saying the group had never owned or dealt with any undisclosed Hermes shares.
“LVMH and its shareholders have strongly reiterated that they have at no time disposed of Hermes International’s shares in any way and that they have no ‘hidden’ shares – which overcomes the implications put forward by Mr Nicolas Peche, who, he believes, has chosen to approach the French courts after being dismissed on a number of occasions.”
Peuch previously accused Freimond of mishandling his stake in a Swiss court last year. The judge threw out those claims in July 2024, saying the Hermes heiress had “blind faith” in her former wealth adviser and had willingly allowed Freimond to manage her funds, including giving the adviser access to her bank accounts.
Peuch’s attorney declined to comment to Bloomberg.
One of the world’s largest luxury brands, Hermès is currently worth $220.58 billion, according to Yahoo Finance. Family heirs are also worth a pretty penny, with a combined net worth of around $155 billion last year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That figure was bolstered by a $5 billion payout in 2025 thanks to four consecutive years of previously record-breaking sales. The company itself is controlled by about 100 heirs who own two-thirds of Hermès outright.
This recent news is just the latest installment in the story of Arnault and Hermes. Titan quietly amassed a 23 percent stake in the luxury brand a decade ago. The family then banded together to prevent Arnault from taking over Hermes completely. As a result, Pioch reportedly fell out with his relatives, leading to his departure from Hermès’ supervisory board in 2014, according to Bloomberg. Patch’s trail of shares in the luxury brand, though, seems to end there. The heir has filed a separate criminal investigation to find out where his allegedly missing shares have gone.
