Hermes owner to pass on portion of $11 billion fortune to his gardener

Gulf Today Report

French luxury design giant Hermes owner Nicolas Puech has announced he will adopt his gardener and make him the official heir to a portion of his wealth worth $11 billion. With this move, Puech is among the super rich owners who made surprising decisions to bequeath their fortunes.

According to a report by Swiss publication Tribune de Genève, Puech has already given his property in Morocco and a villa in Switzerland to his 51-year-old gardener, which is worth $6 million.

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Puech has an ownership of 5.7 per cent of the brand, and is the fifth-generation heir of Thierry Hermes, who had founded the brand in 1837.

The French luxury group Hermes, known for its leather bags and silk scarves, said it continued to see sales growth in the third quarter despite a dip in Asia.

The 7.3-percent rise in overall sales in the third quarter from the same period last year to 3.4 billion euros ($3.6 billion) narrowly beat analyst expectations.

The performance also beat luxury sector leader LVMH, which reported flat sales between July and September after having posted double-digit growth in the first two quarters of the year.

The luxury industry had previously seemed impervious to the crimp in consumer consumption as inflation soared and interest rates climbed.

Chief executive Axel Dumas said Hermes continued to enjoy "sustained momentum" in third-quarter sales, but the performance was still a slowdown from the 22-percent increase registered in the first half of the year.

Sales in most regions of the world still posted double-digit gains: 10 percent in Japan, 11.9 percent in the Americas and 16.4 percent in Europe.