BREITLING just bought UNIVERSAL GENEVE SA for 60M CHF.

Quite the price tag for a brand that has been in a state of hibernation for many years (slowing production in the 70s, and not having updated its marketing on its website since 2009).

However, the brand's timepieces still have significant traction in the collectorsphere (with 1,255 listings on Chrono24 today).This represents an important development for Breitling, moving the brand into the portfolio game. Current thinking is that the new acquisiton has the potential to be positioned against brands such as Jaeger-LeCoultre up to the likes of Vacheron Constantin and Montres Breguet.

Breitling has grown its own revenue from the high ~$400 USD to ~$940 USD under the leadership of Georges Kern since 2017.

Thus, the acquisition in the hands of Breitling has a good chance of increasing the value of the Universal Geneve brand in the long-term and could represent, in hindsight, a savvy play to build the overall Breitling generating significant ROI from the initial 60M CHF investment.

Personally - I own a timepiece from each of the brands, and thus am somewhat biased to love the move. My Chinese inspired dial ultra thin Universal Geneve from the 1960s, while way too small for my wrist, is one of the more querky and unique in my (small) collection, and I believe the brand has great potential due to the knowledge that many colllectors have this brand in their collections today.

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