In December 2023, a Swiss newspaper reported a story that sounded like a fairy tale. Nicolas Puech, an 80-year-old heir to the French luxury house Hermès, had begun the process of adopting his 51-year-old former gardener.
He planned to leave him at least half of his fortune.
Hermès is the house behind the Birkin and Kelly handbags and its famous silk scarves. Puech is a fifth-generation descendant of Thierry Hermès, who founded it in 1837. CNN described him as a descendant of Europe's richest family.
He never married and has no children. For years he was Hermès's largest individual shareholder, with about 6 million shares, roughly 6% of the company. At recent prices, The Wall Street Journal reported, that stake would be worth about $15 billion.
The man he wanted as his son came from a modest Moroccan family. He was married with two children, and had worked at Puech's home in the Swiss Alps as a gardener and handyman.
For years, Puech had called him his “adopted son,” and the man's wife his “daughter-in-law.” Now he wanted to make it official. The man who once tended his garden could inherit billions.
It would not be easy. Under Swiss law, one adult can adopt another only if they lived together for at least a year while the younger one was still a child.
Even so, the story spread around the world: an elderly heir, a gardener and a fortune worth billions.
But the headlines missed a second story from that same month. Puech had also filed a criminal complaint in France, for breach of trust.