How a Handyman’s Wife Helped an Hermès Heir Discover He’d Lost $15 Billion
[Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.]
When French authorities interviewed Eric Freymond earlier this year, one of their first questions for the Swiss wealth manager was a simple one: Tell us about your relationship with Nicolas Puech, the Hermès heir who had given Freymond effective control over a fortune now estimated at more than $15 billion.
Freymond replied with a bombshell: The two men were lovers.
“I think that in a certain way he loved me. We were a couple,” Freymond said, adding that they were “extremely discreet” about the relationship.
Freymond described the two men’s lives crisscrossing at houses and five-star hotels across Spain, Switzerland and London, where they lived in nearby apartments.
When asked by a magistrate what Puech had seen in him, Freymond responded that it was “probably my looks. My way of carrying myself. The fact that I had respect for him.”
But according to Puech, this was all a lie—one of many Freymond spun over the years to create an elaborate fiction around his client. Puech told French investigating magistrates that his money manager was not a lover but rather a trusted friend who became a Svengali-like figure and isolated him from friends and family so that he could siphon away a massive fortune.
By shielding Puech from anyone who might uncover his deceptions, Freymond maintained control over him, Puech said—and was able to keep up the illusion that Puech was still one of Europe’s richest people.
Puech, the 82-year-old fifth-generation heir to one of Europe’s most iconic and profitable businesses, testified that Freymond “turned out to be a con man, even a gangster.”
When the magistrates asked about his current financial situation, Puech said he has requested to liquidate his holdings in an Hermès real-estate unit, valued at roughly $1.2 million.
“Otherwise, I have nothing left,” said Puech.
Freymond, who was 67 years old and married with two daughters, was struck by a train and killed in July in his Alpine village near Gstaad, a death local police concluded was a suicide.
The testimony from Freymond and Puech was reviewed by the Journal; it has not been publicly released and much of it hasn’t been previously reported. The testimony, as well as other legal documents and the accounts of people who knew both of them, provide fresh details about the relationship at the center of what could be one of the frauds of the century—a $15 billion vanishing act involving the largest individual holding of shares of Hermès, the prestigious French luxury group considered the pinnacle of the fashion world and best known for its iconic silk scarves and Birkin handbags.
Iconic Hermès silk scarves and Birkin handbags. Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg News
Puech sued Freymond before his death in both Switzerland and France, and what happened to Puech’s wealth is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation by magistrates in Paris. Puech is cooperating with that investigation in an effort to claw back some of his fortune.
Freymond had faced other allegations of wrongdoing during his long career as a wealth manager. In 2010, he and his company at the time were fined four million euros for insider trading. A late French ballet dancer and actress sued him for breach of trust, an allegation he denied. Other former clients alleging wrongdoing include the original Bond girl, Swiss actress Ursula Andress. And the estate of a late businessman is seeking to claw back a loan of €20 million, or about $23 million, that Freymond arranged.
For more information see Nick Kostov “How a Handyman’s Wife Helped an Hermès Heir Discover He’d Lost $15 Billion,” The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2025.