Who is the Hermès family, the richest in France?

Almost 200 years ago, Thierry Hermès founded a business specializing in equestrian goods. Today, the company is arguably the world's largest luxury empire. The journey to this point has been marked by changes, controversies, and two details that have remained untouched and may explain the exponential growth of the last five years: a fashion house that prioritizes artisanal production and remains under the leadership of the same family . Family ties have intensified since a legal battle with one of the largest luxury brand conglomerates just over 10 years ago, and which have propelled the Hermès family to the top of the ranking of the biggest French billionaires.

After eight years leading the list of France's richest people published by the economics publication Challenges , Bernard Arnault, CEO of the luxury brand group LVMH (which has a stake in the magazine), has been overtaken by the Hermès family. The heirs, who control 66.7% of the company, will have a fortune of approximately €163.4 billion , a 5% increase from 2024. Meanwhile, the Arnault family, with 48% of LVMH, lost 38.6% of its wealth last year and will now have an estimated net worth of €116.7 billion, according to stock market valuations. But who is the richest family in France, having now surpassed Europe's richest billionaire ?

There are approximately 100 heirs who, together, control more than two-thirds of Hermès' shares . The company was founded in 1837 by Thierry Hermès and specialized in the artisanal production of riding harnesses. In 1880, Charles-Émile Hermès, the founder's son, opened a shop at 24 rue Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in Paris, where he began manufacturing custom-made horse accessories. The move to general leather goods would come in 1922, followed by men's clothing in 1925; jewelry in 1927; and watches and sandals in 1928. In 1930, after three generations of directors who were direct descendants of the founder, Émile Hermès handed over leadership of the family business to his daughters' husbands, thus creating the three branches that run the brand to this day: the Dumas, the Puech, and the Guerrand.

When Robert Dumas joined his father-in-law in the 1930s (he took over the company's management in 1951), Hermès began producing the items that are now part of the brand's DNA—like the silk scarves popularized by Jackie Kennedy or the handbag that was renamed Kelly in the 1950s, in honor of the Princess of Monaco. And it was under the Dumas family's leadership that the company continued for the last seven decades, with a brief transition period between 2006 and 2013 under Patrick Thomas, the only non-family director at Hermès.

Axel Dumas has been the company's CEO since 2014 and is part of the sixth generation of the family. He is the nephew of Jean Louis Dumas , great-great-grandson of the founder of Hermès, who served as the brand's CEO for 28 years and is considered one of the people responsible for elevating the company's status as an international luxury house . In a 15-year period, he opened 132 stores worldwide. It was also Jean Louis Dumas who, in 1983, during a chance encounter with actress Jane Birkin on an Air France flight, created the handbag model that is today the most coveted in the world—and the most valuable, as the original Birkin prototype was auctioned for 8.6 million euros last week. He was also a charismatic boss. In 2002, reports Le Monde , Jean Louis Dumas organized an internal draw so that his employees could discover “the beauties of the world”: they wrote what their ideal trips would be on a piece of paper, with Japanese salespeople asking to visit Versailles and others wanting to cross Europe on horseback to Saint Petersburg.

"My uncle used to say that we're not a luxury company, but a quality artisanal company . He'd say, 'I don't look at what others do; I can be influenced.' That's stayed with me," Axel Dumas told the Financial Times in September 2024 , in an interview in which he didn't rule out the possibility of entering the haute couture market—which Hermès officially announced in February, with the expectation of starting collections between 2026 and 2027.

Axel Dumas joined Hermès in 1993, at the age of 22, at a time when the brand's affairs were settled through baptisms, weddings, and funerals. "I joined a small company that is now very big. Although I could still mess it up and make it small again," he joked. In between, he earned degrees in law, political science, and philosophy, and worked at Paribas in Beijing and New York. Since taking over as CEO, at a time when Hermès was locked in a legal battle with LVMH , Axel Dumas has been a frequent front-row figure at the brand's fashion shows and at new store openings around the world, rubbing shoulders with personalities from the fashion and entertainment industries, although Le Monde claims that on weekends he can pass undetected through bookstores in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in jeans and a white shirt.

The sixth generation of Thierry Hermès' descendants was raised with the same philosophy, which explains the presence of so many cousins in the most important positions within the luxury house . "We believe that our success is due to the fact that this company is family-owned and to the coherence and continuity of the long-term strategy," Guillaume de Seynes , son of Catherine Dumas and great-great-grandson of the founder, General Manager of Production and Holdings, told filmmaker Anna-Sophie Chaumier Le Conte in 2011. De Seynes has worked in the family business since 1999, being one of those responsible for the watchmaking operations in Switzerland. In 2016, he assumed the presidency of the Comité Colbert, formed by 97 French luxury houses and which has defended and promoted "savoir faire" since 1954.

Know-how is one of the company's greatest assets, according to Pierre-Alexis Dumas , Jean Louis' son and the brand's artistic director. In December, on the CBS program 60 Minutes , the heir spoke about another secret to Hermès' success: exclusive, high-quality, handcrafted items, which command prices in the tens of thousands of euros . The artistic director himself learned saddle stitching as a child with two needles and beeswax-coated thread, which ensures the bags' durability. Dumas argues that Hermès doesn't have expensive products, but rather costly ones. "The cost is the price of making an object properly, with the required level of attention to make it a quality object. Expensive is a product that isn't as effective as it should be, but you still pay a large sum of money and feel betrayed. This is expensive."

Hand-sewn from start to finish by the same artisan and with a limited annual production, a Birkin can take 20 hours to make. Prices can reach 40,000 euros—or even hundreds of thousands at international auctions, depending on the rarity of the color and material. Waiting lists last for years, and money isn't enough . "You have to walk into a Hermès store and be patient," says Dumas, justifying that the brand doesn't bow to the whims of millionaires. "I also have children and I also have desires. But it's a long process: first you have to go to the store, make an appointment, talk about what you want, check what's possible and available, and eventually it will happen," explains the artistic director, who asserts that Hermès has no marketing department : buzz is created by word of mouth (or celebrity to celebrity). From muses Grace Kelly and Jane Birkin, to royalty like Queen Elizabeth II, pop fashion icons like Kate Moss and Sarah Jessica Parker, to the most famous social media personalities like the Kardashians and Georgina Rodriguez, everyone wants to be seen wearing an Hermès . "We're an old lady with startup problems," jokes Dumas about the slow production in the face of high demand. "We're artisans, not machines," the artistic director responds bluntly when confronted with the industrial pace of the market.

The company remains in the family, with another direct descendant of Thierry Hermès, Henri-Louis Bauer , serving as chairman of the board. Bauer represents the second branch of the family: he is the son of Marie France Puech, sister of Nicolas Puech , one of the most famous Hermès heirs, for the most curious reasons. Puech, 83, may own around 5% of the luxury house 's shares, but he is best known for the controversies he has been embroiled in in recent years: in 2023, he attempted to adopt the 53-year-old gardener so that he could inherit his fortune , then valued at 10 million euros; and he was recently sued by the Emir of Qatar for failing to sell his Hermès shares after promising the deal . The octogenarian is the only direct heir of Thierry Hermès who refused to join the family holding company , H51, created in 2011 and comprised of 51 descendants, which holds more than half of the company's capital. Nicolas Puech currently claims he no longer has control over his 6 million shares in the company , and the whereabouts of his fortune are a mystery (although French authorities have discovered that some of the shares were sold to Bernard Arnault).

The third branch of the family also sits on the board of directors, with names like Julie Guerrand , chosen to lead the holding company in 2011, and Wilfried Guerrand, the general director of IT, who made headlines in 2024 by offering his four children, aged 18 to 25, a portion of the company's shares, worth €4.2 million, as reported by Bloomberg. The Guerrands are the family members who most "enjoy the benefits they inherited," writes Le Monde, quoting former Gucci deputy general manager Yann Kerlau in his 2010 book *Les Dynasties du luxe*. "Their lifestyle is incomparable to that of the Dumas cousins," he states, highlighting their polo teams, apartments, and sumptuous properties in Portugal and Marrakesh.

This line of Thierry Hermès heirs has strong ties to our country. Hubert Guerrand, great-great-grandson of the house 's founder, married Rosalinda Álvares Pereira de Melo , the eldest daughter of the 10th Duke of Cadaval. The businessman died in 2016, but left a vast estate. The collection of furniture and artwork in the family's Paris residence , which included a chair that once belonged to Queen Marie Antoinette, fetched over €20 million at an auction organized by Sotheby's in 2023. "He collected modern art, porcelain, and above all objects sold at auctions that had belonged to his political family, the Dukes of Cadaval," Spanish businessman Juan Carlos Fierro, a friend of Guerrand, told ABC in 2016. The Hermès heir also wrote the foreword to Paula Bobone's book *Socialíssimo *, about the Portuguese social media. "He was a simple, affable man, and a good conversationalist. He threw several fantastic parties at Quinta de Manique in Cascais, and when the Hermès store opened in Chiado, Hubert hosted an unforgettable reception at Palácio Condeixa," the author told Sábado magazine in 2016.

The rise to the top spot on the list of France's richest people is driven by growth that runs counter to the luxury industry . Hermès's share price has more than tripled since the beginning of 2021, while luxury giants have seen their revenues decline. By the end of 2024, the company's market value reached an unprecedented €300 billion , and in April 2025, it surpassed LVMH, owner of brands such as Louis Vuitton and Dior, for the first time.

This success comes almost a decade after a legal battle against Bernard Arnault , the second-placed designer in the Challenges ranking , who is estimated to have a fortune of 116.7 billion euros. Since its founding in 1837, Hermès remained a 100% family-owned company, until Jean Louis Dumas decided to make 20% of the shares publicly available in 1993, paving the way for Bernard Arnault's move almost 20 years later, just a few months after Dumas's death.

It was 10 a.m. on October 23, 2023, when Bertrand Puech, the Hermès family spokesman, received the call: "This is Bernard Arnault, I got your number through your sister. I want to tell you that, as you know, there are shares for sale, and we bought some," he recounts in the 2011 French documentary "Hermès Saga: When the Family Protects the Brand ." Two hours later, the LVMH founder announced that he had purchased a 14.2% stake in Hermès. Three days later, a new statement announced that LVMH held a 17% stake in the company , a move considered "hostile" by the Birkin brand. It was here that the founder's descendants joined forces to form a holding company that now owns more than 62.85% of the French fashion house : with stricter sales rules, the statute prevents purchases outside the family and freezes 80% of the assets until 2041. In 2011, Arnault reached 22.6% of the company, which led Hermès to file a criminal complaint against the luxury conglomerate for insider trading, collusion, and share price manipulation.

The family was caught off guard, but Bernard Arnault's plan had been in the works for at least eight years. The LVMH boss employed a complex financial scheme using tax havens in Luxembourg, the US state of Delaware, and Panama. In 2013, the French Financial Markets Authority discovered that 8.8 million shares were sold through the wealth manager of Nicolas Puech (Hermès heir) to banks mandated by Bernard Arnault's group, equivalent to 68% of the shares acquired by LVMH, reported Le Monde . After years of court battles, in 2014 LVMH announced that it would distribute approximately 23% of the shares to shareholders and investors , putting an end to the dispute between the two groups. The Arnauld family currently owns 1.87% of Hermès.

Lawyer Philippe Ginestié recalls the conversation between Bertrand Puech and Bernard Arnault, which made the differences between the two sides clear. "In my world, when you take a stake in a company, you first invite people to lunch and make sure everything is going well," the patriarch of the Hermès family reportedly said. "We didn't have time," Arnault reportedly replied. "They've been buying our shares for several years and they didn't have time? That's exactly what I was saying: we're not from the same world! " Puech reportedly retorted. A bitterness that remains more than 10 years after the end of the battle.

"We don't sell the same products, so surpassing [Louis Vuitton's] size is not a goal. There's very little comparison between the two groups ," Axel Dumas told the Financial Times in 2024, rejecting any similarity to the luxury conglomerate. The current CEO took over the position precisely during a turbulent period: Jean Louis Dumas's Parkinson's syndrome was already too advanced to continue in the role in 2006, when Patrick Thomas took over as temporary leader of the company until a successor was identified. When Bernard Arnault announced his first move at Hermès in 2010, Axel Dumas was studying at Harvard Business School—the following year he returned to France to take the position of COO, preparing to become the brand's permanent CEO in 2014. "The crisis forced us to restructure," he states.

France's richest man since 2017, Bernard Arnault has seen his fortune shrink over the past year. He previously ranked second on Forbes' list of billionaires , ahead of Bill Gates, and in 2023, he accumulated €203 billion in the Challenges ranking , the highest figure ever on the list of the 500 largest fortunes in France. He is also the richest man in Europe, according to Bloomberg . Created in 1987 from the merger of Moët Hennessy and Louis Vuitton, the LVMH group now has more than 70 luxury brands in sectors such as beverages, fashion, cosmetics, and jewelry. In 2024, it recorded revenue of €84.7 billion , with a 14% reduction in profits from recurring operations. With results below expectations, this year Arnault is in second place on the list of professional fortunes, with 116.7 billion, followed by Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, owners of Chanel , with 95 billion euros.

The discreet brothers rarely attend the French fashion house 's shows, preferring to sit in the third or fourth rows to go unnoticed. The Wertheimer family has been involved in Chanel's history since 1924, when brothers Paul and Pierre Wertheimer, owners of a cosmetics company, partnered with Coco Chanel to launch Chanel No. 5. In 1954, Pierre purchased the entire company, from perfumes to haute couture. With Coco Chanel's death in 1971, Alain Wertheimer, Pierre's grandson, took over as President of the house , hiring Karl Lagerfeld as creative director in 1983. Currently, Alain runs Chanel from New York, while Gérard leads from Switzerland.

Commenting on the battle between Hermès and Bernard Arnault for Anne-Sophie Chaumier's documentary Le Conte, Lagerfeld was blunt: "If they wanted to preserve the family heritage and the national treasure, they had to be 100% the owner of their own business," criticized the German designer, renowned for his time at Chanel, who believes the Hermès family was "afraid" of the LVMH businessman . What's certain is that something has changed: since the crisis, Axel Dumas has organized two dinners a year for the seventh generation, where he tells the story of the house and conveys Hermès' values: "Courage, tolerance, kindness, critical thinking, and freedom," reports Le Monde. The cousins in leadership actually work very closely—literally, in neighboring offices. "We're all number two. Number one, obviously, is Hermès," asserts Dumas, who now makes a point of reaffirming that family always comes first.