The Case of the Missing $15 Billion Fortune: Part 1

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Hermès is one of Europe’s most storied luxury brands, known for its Birkin bags and expensive silk scarves. One of the company’s biggest shareholders had been fifth-generation Hermès heir Nicolas Puech. But a few years ago, Puech made a shocking admission: he was out of money. And Puech’s Hermès shares, worth some $15 billion, were missing. In this first episode, WSJ’s Nick Kostov digs into one of the most baffling and epic financial sagas of this century. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: The World's Richest Person Is Planning for Succession Are Diamonds Even a Luxury Anymore? How a Miami Couple Used Empty Mansions to Pocket Millions Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Our colleague Nick Kostov covers European luxury brands.
0:09.7	Nice beat if you can get it.
0:11.5	In a while back, he took one of the most beautiful road trips you can imagine,
0:15.9	through the Swiss Alps to a small village called Ferret.
0:22.6	Yes, so Ferre is a tiny hamlet.
0:26.2	There's maybe 12 houses.
0:28.4	How I got there was I got a train from Paris to Geneva, and then I drove through the Alps.
0:33.6	Really, really beautiful drive.
0:35.9	And then you leave kind of the last town, drive another
0:38.4	three kilometers, and then you get to Ferre.
0:42.4	So it's very, very remote.
0:44.6	It's incredibly beautiful.
0:46.7	I can't overstate how beautiful the views are from Ferre.
0:51.1	But Nick wasn't there to sightsee.
0:54.5	I was there to find a guy called Nicola Puech, who is a fifth-generation heir to the Hermes fortune.
1:05.7	Nicola Puech is the great-great-grandson of Therie Hermes, the founder of the French luxury goods company.
1:13.0	For years, Puesch was Hermes' biggest shareholder and one of the richest men in Europe.
1:19.5	And then, two years ago, Puesch made a jaw-dropping claim.
1:24.4	He was out of money, broke, skint.
1:30.9	As for his Hermes shares, shares which today would be worth about $15 billion, he claimed he didn't own them anymore, and he didn't know who did.
1:38.1	The shares were quite simply gone. What was your reaction when you first heard that this Gone.
1:52.3	What was your reaction when you first heard that this multi-billion dollar fortune had gone missing?
	...

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