{{ Descendant loses Swiss court case against ex-wealth manager
Nicolas Puech accused Eric Freymond of ‘gigantic fraud’ }}
I don’t know why people keep using these larcenous financial advisors rather than adopting the simple Gospel of Buffett and Bogle.
intercst
He should have kept those shares. Hermes prints money. Owning Hermes stock is like owning Google.
The article says the claim was dismissed by the court saying the fraud was “undetectable to common mortals.” So there must be more here than we know.
In the 2000s Bernard Arnaut (third richest man in the world) tried a (partially illegal) hostile takeover of Hermes and almost succeeded. He secretly bought up a large portion of the public stock and then offered the family members a high price for their private shares. This created a prisoner’s dilemma. If nobody sells, the family retains control of the company. But if someone sells and gets the high price, then Arnaut takes control and the high offer goes away.
But the family members banded together and pooled 51% of the shares into a holding company that is contractually unable to sell the shares, which blocked Arnaut. Nicolas Puech did not contribute his shares to the pool. Arnaut was forced to walk away, but still made billions. Anyway, there is some high-wire finance stuff going on.