By Tassilo Hummel and David Gauthier-Villars
Sept 17 - In a June court filing, luxury-goods giant LVMH
"The group never contemplated acquiring Nicolas Puech's stake, let alone against his will," LVMH stated in the filing, responding to a lawsuit Puech filed last
year in France.
But LVMH signed a 2002 agreement to purchase the heir’s shares, legal documents reviewed by Reuters show, in a deal LVMH representatives crafted with Puech’s financial advisor, Eric Freymond, who died last year. Further, the records reveal, LVMH and its chairman’s family holding company paid Freymond’s management firm at least $20 million in commissions and fees between 2001 and 2009 as Freymond helped LVMH secretly build a massive stake in Hermès.
The 2002 agreement for Puech’s shares and the scale of the Freymond payments are reported here for the first time. Taken together, they show LVMH’s relationship with Puech’s wealth manager and confidant was more extensive than previously known and raise questions about recent LVMH denials of any attempt to buy Puech’s Hermès stake.
The revelations mark the latest plot twist in a bitter corporate rivalry between the luxury-goods giants dating back a quarter century, when LVMH first started covertly building its Hermès stake. Hermès fended off what it called a hostile takeover by LVMH Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault after the billionaire surprised investors in October 2010 by disclosing a 17% stake in the smaller rival. LVMH accumulated as much as 23% in Hermès before agreeing to liquidate its stake in a 2014 truce.
The mystery surrounding the fortune the Hermès heir says is missing continues to play out in Paris courts, raising fresh questions over whether and how his shares ended up as part of the LVMH stake in Hermès.
Arnault had built a luxury empire through acquisitions, starting with Christian Dior before taking control of LVMH in the late 1980s, shortly after its founding in a merger of Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy. Today, LVMH is the world’s biggest luxury firm, with more than 75 brands selling everything from clothes and leather goods to champagne and perfume, and Arnault is among Europe’s richest people.
Hermès, mostly run by members of its founding family, has become one of France's most valuable listed companies, alongside LVMH, thanks to a focus on ultra-wealthy shoppers and the enduring appeal of its handmade Birkin and Kelly handbags, which can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
Puech says he didn’t discover his shares had vanished until 2022, after he cut ties with his wealth manager. Last year, he filed a lawsuit seeking €14 billion ($16 billion) in damages from whoever might be found guilty in prosecutors’ parallel probe into his missing fortune – which has targeted Puech’s now-deceased financial advisor and a lawyer who advised LVMH on its covert stakebuilding in the 2000s. At today’s share prices, Puech’s 6% stake in Hermès would be worth about $10 billion.
Puech’s lawsuit names LVMH and its billionaire chairman as defendants, along with companies affiliated with Freymond.
LVMH argued in its June court filing that buying Puech’s shares would have made no sense because it had planned at the time to take the “opposite” strategy of convincing Puech to join a shareholder bloc to influence Hermès, which the heir couldn’t do without his stake. But the documents reviewed by Reuters show LVMH signed the 2002 agreement to buy Puech's shares with the heir’s wealth manager, Freymond, shortly after launching its stake-building effort.
An LVMH spokesman declined to comment on the agreement or its payments to Freymond.
Puech declined to comment, citing the ongoing criminal probe. Hermès declined to comment.
Freymond was fatally struck by a Swiss train in July 2025 as French prosecutors were investigating whether he misappropriated Puech’s shares. Local prosecutors in Bern, Switzerland, investigated the death and concluded it was a suicide. Freymond denied wrongdoing before his death.
MISSING SHARES
Exactly what happened to the Hermès heir’s shares – and any money paid to buy them – remains unclear.
LVMH has never said whether it purchased Hermès shares owned by Puech. In its June court filing, LVMH acknowledged working with Freymond to accumulate Hermès shares but said any purchase of Puech’s shares would have been unintentional.
In a previously unreported 2017 Swiss court filing, LVMH said the 2002 agreement to buy Puech’s shares was never executed and that the company was unable to verify that the heir had authorized Freymond to sell the stock.
In May, prosecutors told Reuters they were investigating whether Swiss lawyer Alexandre Montavon “participated in the misappropriation of Nicolas Puech's Hermès shares for the benefit of LVMH.”
Prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against Montavon in the ongoing investigation.
Montavon told French prosecutors in May that he advised LVMH on the 2002 agreement, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by Reuters. At the same time, Montavon also worked closely with Puech’s financial advisor, serving as a board member of Freymond’s wealth-management firm, the lawyer testified.
The 2002 agreement, negotiated with Freymond, called for LVMH to buy millions of Hermès shares from Puech and other family heirs, Montavon told prosecutors.
A lawyer for Montavon said his client denied any wrongdoing and that he was never informed “at the time of the events” that LVMH had purchased shares belonging to Puech.
The Swiss lawsuit where LVMH detailed payments to Freymond was filed by the wealth manager in 2016. Freymond alleged LVMH had not fairly compensated him for his services in helping the company acquire Hermès stock. LVMH settled the case in 2019, agreeing to pay Freymond €10 million.
In its filing in that case, LVMH detailed the payments to Freymond and said they were intended to maintain its relationship with him and prevent him from facilitating transfers of Hermès shares to other competitors. Freymond had access to Hermès shares because of his relationship with Nicolas Puech and connections to other relatives owning the company’s stock, according to the LVMH filing.
More than 100 heirs from three different family branches own stakes in Hermès, which was founded in 1837. Many work at the company. Puech had among the largest inherited stakes of any founding-family member. Reuters could not confirm which heirs, if any, worked with Freymond to sell their shares to LVMH or whether they would have known the identity of the buyer.
After Freymond died last year, Hermès family heir and CEO Axel Dumas told reporters he had long been convinced that “Nicolas Puech doesn’t have his shares anymore,” without elaborating on why.
“I’m waiting for the outcome of the criminal investigation,” he said, “but I do not believe these shares can be recovered.”
A SECRET AGREEMENT
Freymond's relationship with LVMH is central to Puech's lawsuit over his lost fortune and to the French criminal investigation.
The relationship started in 2001 after Montavon – the Swiss lawyer now being investigated – helped introduce Freymond to top LVMH aide Pierre Godé, Arnault's longtime adviser and strategist, according to Montavon’s testimony and the Swiss court submission by LVMH. (Godé died in 2018.)
The LVMH court filing said Freymond claimed connections with Hermès family shareholders interested in selling stock but "did not disclose details about the identity of the seller or sellers."
Freymond proposed creating a “screen” for the stock sales to LVMH by using Puech’s accounts as a pass-through for Hermès shares owned by others, according to Montavon’s testimony. The goal was to hide the fact that LVMH was the real buyer because some Hermès heirs might have refused to sell to a rival company, he said.
"Mr. Freymond suggested to us to make these transactions through Mr. Puech, financed by LVMH, and that's what was done," Montavon said, according to the testimony transcript.
LVMH did not answer Reuters' questions about its alleged use of Puech's account to buy Hermès shares in 2001. The company said in its 2017 lawsuit filing that by 2002, with Freymond’s assistance, it had accumulated 4.9% of Hermès.
But LVMH wanted more: On November 12, 2002, Godé and Freymond signed the agreement for LVMH to purchase millions of additional Hermès shares from Puech and other heirs. The agreement called for the share purchases to commence after the expected departure of long-serving Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas, who ended up retiring in 2006.
In its 2017 Swiss court submission, LVMH said the agreement was later placed on hold pending confirmation that Freymond had the authority to act on Puech’s behalf. The company said Godé could not verify Puech’s “real intentions” for his Hermès shares.
LVMH added it never asked Freymond to execute the agreement and that the document was destroyed in late 2010, the year LVMH revealed its large Hermès stake.
Montavon said in his testimony that he “absolutely never” asked Puech about the 2002 agreement. When French prosecutors asked him why he didn’t just ask the heir directly whether he wanted to sell his shares, Montavon replied that Puech “had a representative” – referring to Freymond – “to whom he gave all his powers.”
LVMH did not answer Reuters' questions about whether it ever discussed the 2002 agreement with Puech or why the document was destroyed.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel in Paris and David Gauthier-Villars in Istanbul; editing by Matt Scuffham, Lisa Jucca and Brian Thevenot)
