Key takeaways
- The Hermès family group held 70,437,764 of 105,569,412 shares, or 66.7% of the capital, as of 31 December 2025, per the company's 2025 Universal Registration Document.
- Family voting power runs higher than family ownership: 78.6% of voting rights on ordinary resolutions against 66.7% of capital, because Hermès grants double voting rights to registered shares held four consecutive years, not the two years French law defaults to.
- H51 SAS, one family holding vehicle, alone held 54.3% of the capital as of 31 December 2025. A simple majority, held by one family entity.
- Hermès International is a société en commandite par actions whose Active Partner, Émile Hermès SAS, has held that role since 27 December 1990. The URD describes this as exclusive control within the meaning of Article L. 233-16 of the French Commercial Code.
- The AMF fined LVMH 8 million euros on 25 June 2013 over the equity swaps it used to build a hidden Hermès stake from 2008. LVMH distributed the entire stake to its own shareholders on 17 December 2014.
- The family has not declared a threshold crossing since 21 July 2017, and the URD states there has been no significant change in the distribution of capital or voting rights over the last three years.
This article is based on primary sources: Hermès International's 2025 Universal Registration Document filed with the AMF on 19 March 2026 (capital and voting rights tables at paragraph 7.2.2.5), the company's Article L. 233-8 declaration of shares and voting rights as of 30 June 2026, and AMF Enforcement Committee decision SAN-2013-15 of 25 June 2013. Full source list at the bottom.
Who owns Hermès right now?
The short answer is the Hermès family. The precise answer needs three numbers and a date.
As of 31 December 2025, per the 2025 Universal Registration Document filed with France's Autorité des Marchés Financiers on 19 March 2026, Hermès International's capital broke down like this:
| Holder | Shares | % of capital | % of voting rights (ordinary resolutions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| H51 SAS (family vehicle) | 57,375,794 | 54.3% | 64.0% |
| H2 (family vehicle) | 7,012,602 | 6.6% | 7.8% |
| Other Hermès family members | 6,049,368 | 5.7% | 6.5% |
| Total Hermès family group | 70,437,764 | 66.7% | 78.6% |
| Public (free float) | 34,398,551 | 32.6% | 21.4% |
| Treasury shares | 733,097 | 0.7% | n/a |
| Total | 105,569,412 | 100% | 100% |
Two things in that table are worth slowing down for.
First, H51 SAS holds 54.3% of the capital by itself. Not the family collectively, one vehicle. Anyone modelling a Hermès takeover has to get past a single entity holding an outright majority before the rest of the family is even relevant.
Second, look at the gap between the capital column and the voting column. The family owns two thirds of the company and casts nearly four fifths of the votes. That gap is not an accident, and it is not the dual-class share structure people usually assume. Hermès has one class of shares. The mechanism is buried in Article 12 of its articles of association: double voting rights are allocated to each registered share after being held for a period of four consecutive years. French law's default is two years. Hermès doubled it. A hostile buyer accumulating shares on the market starts with single votes and waits four years for the second one, by which time the family has long since responded.
The company's own declaration of shares and voting rights as of 30 June 2026, filed under Article L. 233-8 of the French Commercial Code, shows 105,569,412 shares carrying 179,346,542 theoretical voting rights. That is roughly 1.7 votes per share across the register, and it is the clearest single proof that the double-vote machinery is doing real work.
The URD also states plainly that, to the company's knowledge, no shareholder outside that table holds more than 5% of the capital or voting rights.
Who controls Hermès?
Here ownership and control genuinely diverge, and this is the part most coverage skips.
Hermès International is not a conventional corporation. It is a société en commandite par actions, a partnership limited by shares. The form splits the company in two. Limited Partners (the shareholders, including everyone who buys RMS on Euronext) supply capital and vote at general meetings. The Active Partner (associé commandité) runs the company, and cannot be removed by a shareholder vote.
Hermès International's Active Partner is Émile Hermès SAS, a simplified joint-stock company with variable capital whose members are direct descendants of Émile-Maurice Hermès. It has held the role since 27 December 1990. The URD characterises the resulting position as exclusive control within the meaning of Article L. 233-16 of the French Commercial Code.
The practical consequence: even if an acquirer somehow bought every free-floating share, it would own a minority of a company whose management it still could not appoint or dismiss. The 66.7% is the visible lock. The SCA structure is the one that actually matters.
Executive management sits with two Executive Chairmen (gérants): Axel Dumas, a sixth-generation family member and Executive Chairman since 2013, and Émile Hermès SAS itself, represented by its chairman Henri-Louis Bauer.
Founders: who started Hermès?
Hermès was founded in 1837, when the harness-maker Thierry Hermès opened a workshop on the rue Basse-du-Rempart in Paris. The business served carriage-drawn Paris, which is why the brand's oldest products are saddles and harnesses rather than handbags.
The name that matters structurally is his grandson, Émile-Maurice Hermès. The Active Partner company carries his name, and its membership is defined by descent from him. Under the current sixth-generation leadership of Axel Dumas, nephew of former Executive Chairman Jean-Louis Dumas, the family has never lost control in 189 years.
Ownership history: the timeline
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1837 | Thierry Hermès opens a harness workshop in Paris | Hermès 2025 URD, chapter 1 |
| 27 Dec. 1990 | Émile Hermès SAS becomes the Active Partner (associé commandité) of Hermès International | Hermès 2025 URD, chapter 2 |
| First half of 2008 | LVMH enters equity-linked swaps with Nexgen, Société Générale and CA-CIB through Luxembourg and Hong Kong subsidiaries, building economic exposure to Hermès | AMF decision SAN-2013-15 |
| Oct. 2010 | LVMH's Hermès stake becomes public; the AMF opens its investigation in November 2010 | AMF decision SAN-2013-15 |
| Dec. 2011 | Family members pool a majority stake into the holding company H51 | Hermès 2025 URD, para. 7.2.2.3 |
| 25 Jun. 2013 | The AMF Enforcement Committee fines LVMH 8 million euros for disclosure failures around the swaps | AMF decision SAN-2013-15 |
| 2 Sep. 2014 | LVMH and Hermès settle under the aegis of the President of the Paris Commercial Court | LVMH press release, 3 Nov. 2014 |
| 17 Dec. 2014 | LVMH distributes its entire Hermès shareholding in kind to its own shareholders | LVMH press release, 3 Nov. 2014 |
| 21 Jul. 2017 | The family group crosses two thirds of the capital (70,385,066 shares, 66.67%) after H51 buys on the market | AMF Notice no. 217C1755, 28 Jul. 2017 |
| 31 Dec. 2025 | Family group holds 66.7% of capital and 78.6% of ordinary voting rights | Hermès 2025 URD, para. 7.2.2.5 |
The LVMH episode is the one worth understanding, because it explains why the structure looks the way it does. Starting in 2008, LVMH built exposure to Hermès through cash-settled equity swaps, which at the time fell outside French disclosure rules for major shareholdings. When the position surfaced in October 2010 at roughly 17%, the family's response was H51: pooling a controlling block into a single vehicle so that no further accumulation could matter. The AMF's case, decided on 25 June 2013, was not that the stakebuilding was illegal but that LVMH had misled the market about it. The 8 million euro fine was the largest the regulator had then imposed.
It ended in a negotiated retreat. Under the settlement announced on 3 November 2014, LVMH distributed its Hermès shares to its own shareholders rather than selling them, with the distribution completing on 17 December 2014. LVMH does not appear anywhere in Hermès's 2025 URD.
What changed in the last 18 months
By the primary record, almost nothing, and that is itself the finding. The URD states that there has been no significant change in the distribution of the company's share capital or voting rights over the last three years, and that no legal threshold crossing was declared in 2023, 2024 or 2025. The last declared crossing was 21 July 2017. For an ownership story, Hermès is close to static.
The live dispute sits beside the register rather than in it. Nicolas Puech, a family heir, filed suit in a Paris civil court in May 2025 against LVMH and Bernard Arnault over roughly six million Hermès shares he says vanished from his holdings, in a claim reported at around 14 billion euros, according to WWD and The Fashion Law. He alleges his former Swiss wealth manager sold them to Arnault without his knowledge during the stakebuilding years. LVMH denies the allegations. A Geneva appellate court ruled against Puech in July 2024, finding his manager acted within his mandate.
Treat that story carefully. It is litigation, not a filing, and the claims are contested and unproven. It does not alter the distribution in the 2025 URD, which is the document of record.
So who really owns Hermès?
The trivia answer, "the Hermès family," is correct and has been since 1837. The structure answer is more useful, and it has three layers.
The family owns 66.7% of the capital. It votes 78.6% of ordinary resolutions, because of a four-year double-vote rule that is twice the statutory default. And underneath both, Émile Hermès SAS holds the Active Partner position in a partnership limited by shares, which means the family's grip does not actually depend on either percentage. Buy the entire float and you still cannot appoint management.
That is the fact the LVMH raid established at a cost of 8 million euros in fines and a four-year fight. The public owns 32.6% of Hermès. What it owns is an economic interest in a company it has no mechanism to control, which is exactly what the 1990 structure was built to guarantee.
FAQ
Is Hermès a public company?
Yes. Hermès International trades on Euronext Paris under the ticker RMS (ISIN FR0000052292), with 105,569,412 shares outstanding as of 30 June 2026. About 32.6% of the capital was in public hands as of 31 December 2025. It is publicly traded and family controlled at the same time.
Does LVMH own part of Hermès?
No. LVMH built a stake of roughly 17% from 2008 using undisclosed equity swaps, was fined 8 million euros by the AMF in June 2013 over how it disclosed the position, and distributed its entire holding to its own shareholders on 17 December 2014. LVMH is not listed among Hermès's shareholders in the 2025 URD.
Who is the largest single shareholder of Hermès?
H51 SAS, a holding company owned exclusively by members of the Hermès family, which held 57,375,794 shares, or 54.3% of the capital, as of 31 December 2025.
Can Hermès be taken over?
Not through the market alone. Hermès International is a société en commandite par actions whose Active Partner, Émile Hermès SAS, cannot be removed by a shareholder vote. Even a buyer of the entire free float would not control management.
Who runs Hermès?
Two Executive Chairmen: Axel Dumas, a sixth-generation family member in the role since 2013, and Émile Hermès SAS, represented by its chairman Henri-Louis Bauer.
What I'm watching next
The Puech litigation is the thing to track, though not for the reason the headlines suggest. Even at 14 billion euros it is a claim about who should have owned shares a decade ago, not a challenge to the current register. Watch instead whether the criminal investigation forces disclosure of how the 2008 to 2010 swap positions were assembled, because that is the only route by which anything new about the raid becomes a matter of record.
Second, watch H51's percentage in each annual URD. It moved by 13,000 shares between the 2024 and 2025 documents, which is noise. A real move would be the first structural signal in nearly a decade.
Third, watch the Active Partner. Ownership percentages are the story everyone writes; the identity and governance of Émile Hermès SAS is the story that would actually matter, and it changes so rarely that when it does, it will be the only Hermès ownership news worth reading.
Sources
1. Hermès International 2025 Universal Registration Document, filed with the AMF on 19 March 2026. Hermès Finance. Establishes the capital and voting rights distribution as of 31 December 2025 (para. 7.2.2.5), the Active Partner structure, the four-year double voting rights rule, and the absence of threshold crossings since 2017.
2. Hermès International, shares and voting rights as of 30 June 2026, published 10 July 2026 under Article L. 233-8 of the French Commercial Code. Regulated information release. Establishes 105,569,412 shares and 179,346,542 theoretical voting rights.
3. AMF Enforcement Committee decision SAN-2013-15 of 25 June 2013 regarding LVMH Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton. AMF decision. Establishes the equity swap counterparties, the timeline of the stakebuilding, and the 8 million euro fine.
4. LVMH, exceptional distribution in kind of shares of Hermès International, 3 November 2014. LVMH release. Establishes the 2 September 2014 settlement and the December 2014 distribution.