Keeping Up with Hermès’ Gay Hermit

A missing €13 billion. A gardener-turned-heir. A Bahamas trust. And maybe, just maybe, Bernard Arnault. Inside fashion’s most fabulous financial fuckery.

So let me set the scene: You’re 82, fabulously fucking rich, gay, and living in a converted hotel in a Swiss alpine hamlet with your Moroccan gardener and his partner. You’re a descendant of the Hermès dynasty. You own (or owned?) 5.7% of the most coveted luxury house in the world—about €13 billion in Hermès shares. You’re living your best queer alpine fairytale life.

Except one day you open your accounts and the shares are gone. All of them. Cue the Renata Klein freakout.

This the real-life saga of Nicolas Puech, who is either the victim of the “heist of the century,” according to Libération, or a man so financially disinterested that he misplaced a small country’s GDP.

This story has everything:

• Mysterious bearer shares that vanished for 12 years

• A wealth manager accused of pulling off a billionaire-level sleight of hand

• A suspicious US lawsuit that evaporated overnight

• Rumors of Bernard Arnault lurking in the shadows like fashion’s Voldemort

• And a very sincere attempt to adopt the gardener and his partner

Let’s break it down.

The Gay Hermit Heir

Nicolas Puech is the great-great-great-grandson of Thierry Hermès, the OG harness-maker who accidentally launched a luxury empire. Puech never married, never had kids, and lives in secluded Swiss splendor with his two closest companions: Jadil Butrak, a Moroccan gardener, and Maria Paz Pineiro, his partner, said to be from a Spanish traveller community.

Nicholas Puech

At one point, Puech was planning to leave his shares to The Isocrates Foundation a charity he established in 2011 to fund “the protection and promotion of public debate”. But he switched gears and decided to adopt the couple bequeathing them everything instead. Love wins. ( or so it seems ).

In the fall of 2023, the head of Puech’s foundation received a letter with a dramatic inscription: “Annulation pacte successoral.” Translation: "Cancellation of the inheritance agreement." In the letter, Puech declared, "I irrevocably cancel this agreement, not just because I was mistaken in thinking it would protect me and my assets, but because I intend to make other arrangements." Dramatic? Absolutely.

The letter was signed in the office of Puech’s new lawyer, Bostelmann, and witnessed by none other than his Moroccan gardener, Jadil Butrak, and Butrak’s partner, Maria Paz. Weeks later, Puech’s longtime wealth manager, Eric Freymond, filed a report to the Swiss welfare agency, claiming that Puech—or those around him—were attempting to transfer his fortune to Butrak and Paz. Apparently, during the pandemic, when Puech was living in fear of COVID, Butrak and Paz had managed to become “emotionally indispensable” to him.

Also: Puech allegedly bought them 54 properties, including homes in Spain, Portugal, and Montreux, Switzerland. His lawyer called it “1% of his fortune.” The rest? Apparently, vanished.

Puech’s Swiss home

The Heist, Maybe?

The shares were in the form of bearer shares, which are essentially like financial ghosts. Whoever holds them, owns them, no registry, no accountability. According to court documents, the shares were moved and sold over a 24-year period, without Puech noticing.

Why? Because he literally wasn’t looking.

One court ruled he displayed “blind trust” in his financial adviser, Éric Freymond, who managed his money for years and allegedly pulled off the disappearing act.

Eric Freymond

Starting in 1998, Puech began shifting the millions of Hermès shares into Swiss banks. He handed Freymond the keys to the kingdom with a series of signed mandates, like a VIP pass to his financial life. From 2001 on, the shares were bouncing around like party guests, sold, bought, transferred.

Over a nearly two-year period that wrapped up in October 2010, the same month Bernard Arnault decided to show up at the Hermès party by revealing his stake in the company, Puech’s shares raked in a tidy €53.7 million in realized profits. Puech? He had no objections to Arnault entering the Hermès fold. In fact, he apparently thought of him as an “ally”. But how did that happen?

Bernard Arnault

In 2001, Bernard Arnault, the undisputed king of LVMH, was licking his wounds after losing the Gucci battle. By June, an LVMH employee in Geneva hit up Éric Freymond, Nicolas Puech’s wealth manager, asking if he’d help them quietly scoop up Hermès shares. Freymond, starry-eyed and clearly not thinking this through, saw Arnault as Europe’s Bill Gates. So he said yes.

He had the connections, and, more importantly, the power. With discretionary mandates on Puech’s accounts, he could do whatever he wanted with the money, no questions asked. So while Puech was off doing God knows what, Freymond was quietly gobbling up Hermès shares like it was a clearance sale.

By 2006, things turned very shady. Freymond and Arnault met at Château d’Yquem, likely over a glass of Bordeaux, and mapped out a scheme to funnel even more Hermès shares into LVMH. Using equity swaps and collateral-backed trades—financial sorcery, basically, they moved millions of shares, many through Puech’s accounts, right into LVMH’s hands.

In October 2010, the scheme burst into the public eye: LVMH revealed it had quietly acquired 14.2% of Hermès, with plans to grab more. Eventually, it hit 23%. LVMH insisted it wasn’t a takeover. The Hermès family called bullshit.

In retaliation, the family formed a holding company to lock down their shares. But Nicolas Puech refused to join. Suddenly, he was a very public shareholder with over 5 million Hermès shares, and another 900,000 through his foundation. The family smelled something extremely fishy.

They suspected Puech had sold his stake to Arnault behind their backs. How else could LVMH grab that much when so few shares were public? Freymond denied everything, saying he only managed Puech’s personal assets, not the family inheritance. Sure, Jan.

In 2012, Hermès chairman Henri-Louis Bauer flew to Biarritz to confront Puech face-to-face. Puech denied it all and claimed the shares were safe in a Swiss bank. When Hermès demanded proof in 2014, he flat-out refused. In 2015, Hermès filed a criminal complaint for “forgery and use of forged documents.” Eventually, the investigation widened to include Freymond.

Puech maintained his innocence. But the shares were gone in a mystery that’s still up in the air.

Fast forward to 2022 and Puech sued Freymond for “fraud on a grand scale.” The Swiss court said: You snooze, you lose. And Freymond? He countersued, claiming Puech isn’t mentally fit to manage his affairs anymore.

Three Theories, Zero Resolution

Swiss media company Tamedia, which controls Tribune de Genève, pored through hundreds of pages of financial docs and came up with three possible scenarios of what happened to the missing shares:

1. The Bernard Arnault Theory:

The shares quietly slipped into the hands of LVMH during Arnault’s 2010 attempt to take over Hermès. Tamedia suggests “underhand deals” may have allowed Arnault to acquire them without Puech’s knowledge. The shares passed through Swiss asset managers, LVMH finance directors, and then? Poof.

But Tribune de Genève says multiple contradictions make this theory a little too neat.

2. The Bahamian Trust Theory:

In 2013, Puech flew to the Bahamas. Why? Maybe to hide the shares in a secret trust to protect them from his homophobic family and/or Arnault. There’s proof he made the trip. There’s no proof of the transaction. The shares might be sipping mojitos somewhere offshore.

3. The Billionaire Amnesia Theory:

No really. This one says Puech hid the shares so well—inside layers of offshore entities, shell companies, or possibly a locked drawer in Ferret—that he just… forgot where he put them. Like a Birkin bag filled with bearer certificates gathering dust.

The Lawsuits Just Keep Lawsuiting

Puech’s legal team is active in both Switzerland and France, piling pressure on Freymond. But that’s not all:

• A mysterious lawsuit appeared in the United States, accusing Puech himself of still owning the shares and trying to sell them.

• It relied on the testimony of someone linked to Freymond.

• Days later, the whole thing was quietly withdrawn. No further explanation. No resolution. Just another plot twist in this increasingly baroque drama.

Meanwhile, the Family Is Mad (and Possibly Homophobic)

About 100 of Puech’s relatives are also Hermès shareholders. Many are estranged from him. Some are upset about his sexuality. Others are convinced he secretly helped Bernard Arnault during the 2010 LVMH takeover bid. Puech says that’s false. But trust has clearly left the group chat.

So where are the shares?

• In Arnault’s private vault?

• On a Bahamian beach?

• In a trust only a Cayman lawyer remembers?

• Under the gardener’s bed?

No one knows, lawyers are circling, reporters are digging, and somewhere in Ferret, one of the most chaotic heirs in fashion is sipping herbal tea with his chosen family.