The last descendant of the founders of the luxury fashion house Hermès is an 80-year-old man named Nicolas Puech. He was once a billionaire businessman who currently owns 5.7% of the company’s shares. When combined with the value of his real estate assets, including a mansion in La Fouly, his wealth could amount to 10 billion euros.
But there’s a more surprising piece of news: Puech has chosen a 51-year-old Moroccan national as his heir, sparking controversy as the initial inheritance rights were supposed to be given to the Swiss non-governmental organization, Isocrate Association. The association shared that they were deeply saddened by this unexpected decision.
Currently, all suspicions about not being mentally sound enough to amend the inheritance rights have been ruled out, as Nicolas has undergone a health check and diagnosed as still capable of making sound decisions. This still ignites predictions of legal battles between the involved parties that could last for several years.
Regarding the impending legal dispute, the association’s secretary-general, Nicolas Borsinger, stated in an interview with Tribune de Genève that “the sudden cancellation and unilateral change of inheritance rights are deemed invalid and unfounded.”
The fortune of the last generation of the Hermès family is a massive figure. But who received the inheritance rights? It’s a family helper who married a Spanish woman and is the father of two children. He had become close to Nicolas Puech during the period of social distancing. Earlier, the heir was also gifted a valuable item by Nicolas in Marrakech worth about one and a half million euros and a villa in Montreux.
A similar case has occurred in the fashion world where they didn’t leave inheritance rights to family or relatives. For instance, the late designer Karl Lagerfeld left an inheritance worth 170 million euros to his beloved cat Choupette. For Lagerfeld, Choupette was one of his greatest sources of inspiration for many years, hence, he ‘gifted’ that massive estate.
But that cat isn’t the first case of leaving their inheritance rights to their pets. The first cat to inherit a massive sum was Tommasino, owned by the wealthy Italian real estate tycoon from Potenza – Maria Assunta.
Or Leona Helmsley, a hotel businesswoman, left her inheritance to her Maltese dog named Trouble in 2007. One of the most peculiar cases of inheritance in history is that of T.M. Zink, a lawyer who left a substantial amount to his family with the goal of building the Non-Women’s Library: where women are not allowed to enter, and books written by women are prohibited.
