Herm s Paris

This case is about options for ownership design in family businesses. The Herm s family takes the firm public in 1993 with the dual aim of enabling individual members to exit via selling shares on the market and generating funds to finance the company's growth. Fifteen years later, as LVMH prepares a hostile takeover bid for control of Herm s, the family fights to protect its ownership by creating a family trust to keep minority ownership interests in check.