Hermès family office Krefeld establishes new investment vehicle

Krefeld, the family office backed by descendants of the Hermès dynasty, has established a new offshoot called Breithorn Holding to expand its investment activities beyond the family’s core luxury holdings. Breithorn Holding is based in Paris, France. According to filings with France’s Registre National des Entreprises, Breithorn Holding will oversee fund and asset management on a broader scale. Charles-Henri Chaliac, a former executive at Belgian private equity firm Cobepa who serves as head of Krefeld, will also act as chief executive of the new company. Both entities share the same Paris address. The move signals growing ambitions for the three-year-old family office, which has raised its maximum authorised capital to €1 billion. Public disclosures of Krefeld’s investments have been rare, but the family office has been quietly seeking diversification opportunities: it recently entered exclusive talks alongside the Chamoin family and Fairfax Financial Holdings to acquire French insurer Albingia from Eurazeo, and took a minority stake in Anjac Health & Beauty alongside KKR & Co.

About Krefeld: The Hermès family office

Krefeld was established in 2022 through the consolidation of eight separate family offices and investment vehicles from different branches of the Hermès dynasty – and since then being one of the largest French family offices. The move followed the heirs’ successful defence against a 2010 takeover attempt by Bernard Arnault’s LVMH, which prompted the family to unite their holdings and form the H51 holding structure to guarantee independence for decades. Named after the town in western Germany where founder Thierry Hermès was born in 1801, Krefeld is charged with investing the personal wealth of its constituents — whose ownership is restricted by statute to descendants of Émile-Maurice Hermès, who expanded his grandfather’s Parisian harness workshop into leather goods and luggage. The family office is chaired by Matthieu Dumas, with a board populated by heirs bearing surnames including Bauer, de Seynes, Guerrand, and Mommeja. Recent executive hires include Claire Zeng from Morgan Stanley. With more than 100 descendants holding a combined net worth of $186 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Hermès family is now Europe’s wealthiest. Their approximately 67% stake in Hermès International — which reported €15 billion in sales last year — has generated €5.1 billion in dividends over the past four years, providing Krefeld with substantial capital to deploy. The family office joins a select group of French billionaire family offices including Tethys (Bettencourt Meyers/L’Oréal), Mousse Partners (Wertheimer/Chanel), and Agache (Arnault/LVMH).

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Article Source: Spear’s (22.12.2025)