The luxury French fashion label Hermès prides itself on assisting wealthy people who have run out of gift ideas: Nicolas Sarkozy once gave Barack Obama a €6,000 (£5000) black Hermès golfing bag, the Duke of Windsor ordered a custom-made patent leather wheelbarrow for Wallis Simpson and the Queen was once known to be very fond of the label's gloves. But when it comes to offering itself on a plate to eager tycoons building fashion empires, Hermès is rather more circumspect, reports The Guardian.
The family firm, which began as a harness-maker in the 19th century and is the last major independent luxury fashion house to resist the onslaught of multinationals and conglomerates, has escalated a dispute known as the "handbag wars" that has shaken the Paris luxury goods world.
The standoff between Hermès and its rival LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton and Dior, was played out at a hearing before France's stock market regulator on Friday amid allegations of secret takeover plots and sneaky bids for world domination.
The dispute began in 2010 when it emerged that LVMH, owned by Bernard Arnault, France's richest man, had secretly acquired a 17% stake in Hermès that has now risen to 22%. Hermès, run by the sixth generation of its founding family, is fiercely protective of keeping family control. It said it was stupefied to discover Arnault had built up the stake using a system that masked his true identity.
It feared it was under attack by a businessman who had secretly spent 10 years trying to take it over. The company said there was "an intruder in the garden but we don't want him in the house".
Read more of this report from The Guardian.