F.P. Journe and Chanel buy EBEL
Movado Group announced on 7 October a binding agreement to sell 95% of EBEL, for $66.5 million, to a group led by Montres Journe, the company behind F.P. Journe, with the participation of Chanel and of Pierre Jacques, who will be the brand's chief executive.
The American group keeps 5% of the equity. The trademarks and other intellectual property, the inventory and the Villa Turque, the house Le Corbusier designed in La Chaux-de-Fonds, go with the brand. Closing is expected in the next few months.
The deal
Movado Group, listed in New York, said on 7 October that it had signed a binding agreement to sell 95% of EBEL for $66.5 million. The price is subject to customary adjustments and the deal depends on the usual closing conditions.
The buyer is a group led by Montres Journe SA, the Geneva manufacture founded by François-Paul Journe in 1999 and trading as F.P. Journe. It also includes Chanel, which has held 20% of Montres Journe since 2018, and Pierre Jacques, a former chief executive of De Bethune, who will run EBEL once the transaction is complete.
The deal has two steps. First, the trademarks and other intellectual property, the inventory and other assets dedicated to EBEL move to a new Swiss subsidiary of Movado Group, and the staff dedicated to the brand become employees of that company. At closing, 95% of the new subsidiary's equity passes to the buyers. Movado Group keeps 5% and will provide transition services to the new EBEL, to ensure continuity for customers and partners.
For Efraim Grinberg, chairman and chief executive of Movado Group, the sale lets the group concentrate on its accessible luxury and fashion watch and jewellery brands, while placing EBEL with owners who have the expertise, commitment and long-term view. François-Paul Journe summed up his position in a formula: “the product, the product, the product”. Frédéric Grangié, president of Chanel Watches & Fine Jewelry, spoke of an investment that reflects confidence in the brand's long-term potential.
“The product, the product, the product.” — François-Paul Journe
The assets changing hands include the Villa Turque. The house was commissioned by Anatole Schwob, a watch industrialist from La Chaux-de-Fonds, from Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, who took the name Le Corbusier three years after finishing it. EBEL bought it in 1986, the year of its 75th anniversary, and restored it.
Read more in Movado Group's press release.
More than a century of EBEL
EBEL was founded on 15 July 1911 in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Eugène Blum and his wife, Alice Lévy. The name is an acronym: “Eugène Blum Et Lévy”. The division of work was set from the start, with Eugène in charge of the technical side and Alice of the aesthetics and design of the watches.
Recognition came early. In 1914 the firm won the gold medal at the Swiss National Exhibition in Berne for its patented ring watches. In 1925, at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris, the show that gave Art Deco its name, it received a Grand Prix diploma for its high jewellery models.
Charles Blum, the founders' son, joined the company in 1929 and built an international sales network that included the United States. In 1930 EBEL took part in the first Basel watch and jewellery fair. For decades it was also a supplier: a dedicated unit made movements for other brands.
Technical rigour was part of the house's identity. In 1935 EBEL became the first Swiss maker to use the Western Electric system, the forerunner of the vibrograph and the first device for measuring the precision of movements. In 1957 it set up the Contrôle Technique des Montres, a set of in-house quality controls.
The great expansion came with the third generation. Pierre-Alain Blum, the founders' grandson, took over after a career in the United States. In 1972 the partnership with Cartier began, with EBEL producing wristwatches for the Paris house. In 1977 it launched the Sport Classic, with an integrated case and the wave-link bracelet that gave the watch its nickname. The Sport Chronograph (1982), the perpetual calendar chronograph (1983), the Beluga (1985) and the 1911 collection (1986) followed.
In those years EBEL was the largest buyer of Zenith's El Primero movements, according to SJX Watches. Between 1970 and 1988 the workforce grew from 40 to 700, and sales passed 150 million Swiss francs in the 1980s. The brand adopted the motto “The Architects of Time”, bought the Villa Turque in 1986 and opened its first own boutique in London in 1987.
Its fame also came from sport and the arts. EBEL sponsored the Davis Cup and the European Masters golf tournament in Switzerland, and its ambassadors included tennis players Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Andre Agassi and golfers Bernhard Langer, Greg Norman and Colin Montgomerie. It was also associated with Leonard Bernstein, Barbara Hendricks, Madonna, John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper.
The 1990s reversed the trend. Diversification outside watchmaking went badly and, in 1994, Investcorp became the owner of the brand. In 1995 EBEL still presented calibre 137, a chronograph movement for the 1911 collection, later followed by calibres 139, 240 and 288. Pierre-Alain Blum left in 1996, ending 85 years of family management. In 1999 LVMH bought EBEL and Chaumet from Investcorp for $460 million, and in December 2003 it announced the sale of EBEL to Movado Group for 61.5 million Swiss francs.
EBEL in dates
1911: founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Eugène Blum and Alice Lévy.
1914: gold medal at the Swiss National Exhibition in Berne.
1925: Grand Prix diploma at the Paris Exhibition of Decorative Arts.
1935: first Swiss maker to measure precision with the Western Electric system.
1972: starts producing watches for Cartier.
1977: launch of the Sport Classic.
1983: perpetual calendar chronograph.
1986: 1911 collection and purchase of the Villa Turque, for the 75th anniversary.
1994: Investcorp buys the brand.
1995: calibre 137.
1999: LVMH buys EBEL and Chaumet.
2003: sale to Movado Group.
2026: agreement to sell 95% to the group led by Montres Journe.
What is at stake
The price is the first point to note. At $66.5 million for 95%, EBEL is valued at about $70 million, close to what Movado Group paid more than twenty years ago. In its analysis published on 8 October, SJX Watches calls the deal a surprise and notes that two decades of relaunch attempts did not return the brand to its former scale.
The make-up of the buyer group is the second. According to the same analysis, each party brings a skill: Chanel the capital, François-Paul Journe the watchmaking knowledge and Pierre Jacques the management. As Chanel is already a shareholder in Montres Journe, the purchase extends an existing alliance.
What the new owners intend to do with EBEL remains to be seen: the press release speaks of a next phase of growth, without giving plans for product, positioning or price. The first sign will come with the closing of the deal and Pierre Jacques's initial decisions.
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