Do you remember Nicolas Puech, the 82-year-old Hermès heir who made headlines for wanting to leave his fortune to his gardener? The octogenarian is back in the news,this time not for his surprising benevolence but for a legal tangle involving Middle Eastern royalty. Honor America Capital LLC has filed a lawsuit against the wealthy Frenchman, accusing him of failing to deliver Hermès International SCA shares worth approximately €14 billion ($16 billion) as part of a sale agreement. According to Bloomberg, the company’s chairman claimed the purchase was backed by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The plaintiff is seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages, alleging that Puech did not honor his end of the agreement.
The twist? It’s rather amusing for two reasons. First, Puech’s lawyers insist their client was neither involved in nor aware of any such deal, he reportedly learned of it through the press. Second, while Puech is said to hold six million Hermès shares, he now claims he no longer has access to them.
This isn’t the first time Puech has found himself in the middle of a high-stakes Hermès saga. Years ago, he was entangled in a dispute with French billionaire and LVMH founder Bernard Arnault. In 2014, Arnault revealed he had secretly accumulated a stake in Hermès,a move that shook the tightly held, family-run business. The backlash resulted in an agreement requiring LVMH to distribute its Hermès shares to its own shareholders and to refrain from buying more for five years. Not long after, Puech stepped down from the Hermès supervisory board.
The only other time Puech’s shares made headlines was when he attempted to bequeath his billions to his 51-year-old Moroccan handyman, whom he considered his closest confidant. What’s even more baffling than the alleged Qatari deal is the current mystery surrounding the Hermès shares themselves. As for the Qatari royal family, they’re no strangers to luxury investments,with stakes in London’s Harrods, Paris’ iconic Printemps department store, and fashion houses Valentino and Balmain through their investment firm, Mayhoola, as reported by Bloomberg.
The Emir of Qatar, a man of refined taste, would naturally be drawn to a brand like Hermès, an emblem of heritage, family, and uncompromising values, all wrapped in exceptional success. A known connoisseur of the finest things, it’s no surprise he’d gravitate toward the French maison. After all, this is the man who owns the $500 million, 404-foot superyacht Al Lusail, a floating palace so immense, it once made the late Steve Jobs’ 256-foot Venus look like a dinghy when docked beside it. The Hermès heir’s latest legal entanglement proves that when billions are involved, even royalty and legacy can find themselves in murky waters.
