A fashion mogul with a net worth of $11 billion plans to adopt his 51-year-old gardener and make him the official heir to part of his fortune from the Hermès lineage, according to multiple reports, adding Nicolas Bush to the list of wealthy individuals making surprising decisions about where to leave their fortunes.
Key Facts
Bush, who has no wife or children, intends to leave half of his enormous wealth and real estate portfolio to his gardener and his family, according to the Swiss newspaper Tribune de Genève, a decision that comes amid an alleged dispute over business decisions within the family.
Bush’s fortune is estimated at around $11.5 billion, and he plans to leave half of his wealth to his gardener. He has already given him a property in Morocco and a villa in Switzerland, worth a total of about $6 million.
Main Background
Bush ranks 162nd on the list of the world’s richest people, with a fortune estimated at around $11.5 billion. He owns about 5% of Hermès, the second most valuable luxury brand in the world. The plan to give his fortune to the gardener comes amid tensions within the Hermès family that date back over a decade, starting with a hostile takeover attempt of the company by LVMH, which secretly acquired a 23% stake in the company between 2001 and 2013. To prevent LVMH’s takeover (owned by Bernard Arnault, the second richest man in the world), Bush family members established a holding company that now owns more than half of Hermès shares, but Bush continued to hold onto his stake. Ultimately, Arnault and LVMH agreed to divest their shares. In 2014, Bush resigned from the company’s executive board, with a spokesperson reporting that the reason was that he “felt harassed for many years by family members, who attacked him from different sides.”
Surprising Facts
A few celebrities have stated that they do not plan to leave their fortunes to their children for various reasons. George Lucas, the billionaire creator known as the godfather of the Star Wars universe, declared that proceeds from the $4.5 billion sale of the franchise to Disney would go to educational causes rather than to his four children. Lucas is also a signer of the Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign encouraging the world’s wealthy to donate the majority to charitable causes. Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, MacKenzie Scott, and Mark Zuckerberg have committed to donating. Among the celebrities who have stated they will leave their money elsewhere are Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, Daniel Craig, Gordon Ramsay, and Lauren Powell Jobs, widow of late Apple founder Steve Jobs.
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