By Nick Kostov

On the morning of July 23, Eric Freymond stepped out of his chalet in the hills above Saanen, a discreet alpine village near Gstaad. The Swiss sky was overcast, the air cool.

A financial adviser to Europe's elite for decades, Freymond was under mounting pressure. He was accused of playing a role in the mysterious disappearance of a massive fortune belonging to an Hermès heir, and earlier in the month he sat for lengthy interviews with French authorities investigating the matter. Other clients had also accused him of improprieties. He had denied any wrongdoing.

The 67-year-old rode his bike past wooden houses with triangular roofs, heading toward the center of town. Near a campsite by the railway, he left the path and approached the tracks. Shortly thereafter, he was struck by a train and killed.

Local police are treating the death as a suicide.

Freymond's death marks a dramatic turn in one of the most baffling and epic financial sagas of the century: the mystery of the missing Hermès stake, worth $15 billion based on the luxury giant's current valuation. Freymond had been the longtime wealth manager of Nicolas Puech, a fifth-generation Hermès heir and once the company's largest individual shareholder. Puech says he discovered around 2022 that six million Hermès shares he believed were held in bank accounts in his name were missing. The proceeds from any sale were also unaccounted for.

Puech, now 82 years old, filed lawsuits against Freymond in both Switzerland and France, accusing him of "massive fraud."

In recent interviews with French authorities, Freymond for the first time appeared to confirm the longtime suspicion of people close to Hermès: A large chunk of the shares had been sold to the company's rival, LVMH, as part of a high-profile buying spree by its chairman and chief executive, the luxury titan Bernard Arnault, more than a decade ago. Freymond's contention was that Puech himself was part of the plan.

After his death, two of Freymond's lawyers, François Zimeray and Jessica Finelle, described their client in a statement as "a man of rare sensitivity, broken by the violence of suspicion, betrayal and a world without mercy. What some mistook for weakness was, in fact, a reflection of his humanity."

Puech, for his part, offered his condolences to Freymond's family despite what he called their "public and legal disputes." In a statement, he described Freymond as a friend and adviser with whom he had worked in total confidence for 25 years -- until that relationship, he said, was "broken by events of extreme gravity" related to the missing shares, "on which the full truth still needs to come to light."

I met with Freymond twice last year while reporting a story for The Wall Street Journal on the missing Hermès shares. The first time was in Geneva, in the lobby of a hotel near the airport, just before he boarded a flight to Italy. The second was at La Réserve, a luxurious five--star hotel tucked off the Champs--Élysées in Paris. We sat in the velvet hush of Le Gaspard, the hotel's bar, and drank coffee.

Freymond was smartly dressed, with neatly combed gray hair, and gave off an air of physical fragility. His eyes moved constantly -- scanning the room, never quite at rest.

Unlike Puech, who declined to speak with me last August when I visited the tiny village in the Swiss Alps where he lives, Freymond was eager to make his case. He was forceful in his defense, often combative.

He insisted, as he had for years, that he had never managed the missing shares. He said he didn't know where they had gone. Puech, he claimed, was hiding them himself, unwilling to hand them over to the foundation he had once pledged them to. Instead, Puech wanted to adopt a one-time employee and leave them to him, an allegation Freymond had previously reported to Switzerland's child and adult protection authority, but which had been dismissed.

Much had happened in the months since those meetings. In the period leading up to his death in late July, the legal and financial pressure on Freymond was ratcheting up, according to people familiar with the matter and court documents reviewed exclusively by the Journal.

A French investigation, first opened in 2015 after a lawsuit filed by Hermès alleging forgery and the use of forged documents by Freymond, had gained momentum. Other cases were piling up. One came from the family of late French multimillionaire Richard Desurmont, which accused Freymond of misappropriating assets. A hearing in that case was scheduled for late August. Freymond's chalet in Saanen, near where he died, had recently been placed under a judicial lien, preventing its sale, according to people familiar with the matter.

But Puech's case was the most significant. In December 2023, Puech filed a criminal complaint in France for breach of trust, accusing Freymond of misappropriating his assets and seeking billions of euros in damages.

In June, one of Freymond's two daughters got married, a rare bright spot during an otherwise dark stretch. Freymond seemed tired, people close to him said, and was feeling overwhelmed by the numerous lawsuits he was facing.

On July 7, just two weeks before his death, Freymond was in France to answer questions from investigating magistrates in Paris, in connection with cases filed by Hermès and Puech. As a Swiss citizen, he wasn't strictly obligated to appear -- Switzerland doesn't extradite its own nationals -- but he chose to go.

To prepare, Freymond had assembled a heavyweight legal team including Zimeray, a former diplomat, and Jean Tamalet, a combative strategist from the U.S. law firm King & Spalding. Both accompanied him during the questioning.

After three days, the magistrates filed preliminary charges against Freymond for forgery, use of forged documents and aggravated breach of trust. In the French legal system, preliminary charges mark a critical threshold: Magistrates believe there is enough evidence to justify continuing the investigation.

Freymond was required to post several million euros in bail but was given months to gather the funds. He was barred from contacting a number of individuals, including Puech.

In his testimony, which was held in one of the magistrate's offices, Freymond proved to be far more expansive than he had ever been before. He also appeared to shift his defense from what he had previously said. Details of his conversations with the investigating magistrates were included in the court documents reviewed by the Journal and many haven't been previously reported.

For years, Freymond maintained that he managed Puech's assets, except one key category: the Hermès shares Puech had inherited from his mother and, later, his sister. Those shares made up 6% of what is now one of Europe's biggest companies by market value.

But during questioning, one magistrate confronted Freymond about this claim, stating that he'd had mandates to manage all three accounts in which Puech held those shares. Freymond's response was that he hadn't realized he was managing the entirety of Puech's stake.

"For me, it wasn't the whole holding, just a part," he said. "He gave me a mandate over some Hermès stock, but I had no knowledge of his full fortune."

In his own interview with magistrates, Puech said he had been clear with Freymond. "I never had any intention of selling my inherited shares, my family shares," he said. "If, using the dividends those shares generated, [Freymond] bought additional Hermès stock, he could sell those. But not the original ones."

Freymond also shifted his defense regarding the sale of Puech's holdings to LVMH, offering a new twist on a story that captivated both the fashion world and high finance over a decade ago. Between 2001 and 2013, LVMH built a stake in Hermès that eventually rose to more than 23% -- an effort carried out with Freymond's help. Using his connections with Puech and other members of the Hermès family, Freymond helped direct sales of Hermès shares to LVMH.

For years, Freymond insisted that Puech's inherited shares had not been part of what was sold, though he admitted having moved other Hermès shares through various accounts in Puech's name. Now, he changed his tune.

When a magistrate asked Freymond about Hermès shares belonging to Puech being transferred, first to a vehicle called Dilico, then to Société Générale as part of an equity swap with LVMH in 2008, Freymond was unambiguous.

"Absolutely," he said. "LVMH was the buyer, and Mr. Puech was fully informed."

Freymond handed over dozens of documents to prosecutors, all bearing what appeared to be Puech's signature -- on account statements, transfer orders and more -- as proof, he said, that Puech knew exactly what was going on.

Freymond added that Puech had been "very active and eager to develop a relationship between Hermès and LVMH." Puech had met Arnault 14 times, most often at Freymond's apartment in Paris, Freymond said, and added that part of Puech's motivation was personal: He hoped to play a role in a future merged entity and to get back at members of his own family, who he felt had long treated him as a black sheep.

Puech, for his part, told the magistrates that he signed whatever Freymond put in front of him. Managing that kind of fortune was highly complex, he said, adding that he had trusted Freymond. Puech acknowledged that he met Arnault several times, always accompanied by Freymond, but claimed that he had always refused to sell the shares he inherited to LVMH. A spokesman for Puech declined to comment on Freymond's assertions or to provide more context.

To many inside Hermès and others tracking the dispute, the version of events Freymond laid out to magistrates aligns with what they have long suspected: that Puech's shares were largely sold to LVMH during its covert raid on Hermès -- a campaign that exploded into a major public clash in 2010 and touched off a long legal battle. As part of a truce brokered by regulators in 2014, LVMH agreed to distribute its Hermès shares to its own investors. Many familiar with the case believe Puech's shares were among those handed out.

"I've had the certainty for a long time that Nicolas Puech no longer holds his shares," Hermès Executive Chairman Axel Dumas told reporters on July 30 during an earnings call. "This is why we've started legal proceedings."

A spokesman for LVMH and Arnault declined to comment.

Whatever happened, Puech says his fortune was drained. He claims that he no longer has the Hermès shares, nor does he know where the proceeds from their sale ended up.

An audit by FTI Consulting commissioned by Puech's lawyers concluded that by Dec. 31, 2023, Puech held just EUR600,000 in cash and some EUR96 million in equities and other investments -- much of it tied up in illiquid or opaque ventures, and therefore not accessible to him. Attempts by his lawyers to recover the funds were frequently unsuccessful, according to documents seen by the Journal.

The FTI audit detailed how Freymond, both personally and through his asset-management firms, received tens of millions of euros from Puech. Over a couple of years, for example, around EUR35.8 million flowed from Puech's accounts into a joint account shared with Freymond at Swiss bank Gonet. When the account was eventually closed, it still held nearly EUR15 million in cash and investments, which were transferred to Freymond.

Puech told the magistrates he had been unaware of many of the accounts and investments tied to his name. He also expressed surprise upon learning that his main residence -- a house located in the hamlet of Ferret in the Swiss Alps -- was, in fact, owned by a foundation he had created. He told the magistrates that until 2022, Freymond controlled his movements, received his mail and organized his life in what Puech described as a climate of fear.

Freymond contested the audit, saying he hadn't been consulted and that it didn't include all of Puech's assets. He also denied having ever manipulated Puech. On the contrary, he claimed to have introduced Puech to many people with whom the heir enjoyed a rich social life.

At the close of his third and final day of questioning, Freymond appeared satisfied with how it had gone. One of his lawyers closed by asking Freymond how Puech's legal actions and the media fallout had affected his life. "Disastrous for my family, for my reputation, for my psychological balance," Freymond replied. "But it also gave me the need, and I'll end on this, to express myself as I've been able to do today, yesterday, and the day before."

Write to Nick Kostov at nick.kostov@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 08, 2025 19:00 ET (23:00 GMT)

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