OMEGA

Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Britain's Royal Flying Corps chose Omega watches in 1917 as its official timekeepers for its combat units, as did the American army in 1918. Omega watches were the choice of NASA and the first watch on the Moon in 1969. Omega has been the official timekeeping device of the Olympic Games since 1932. James Bond has worn it in films since 1995; other famous Omega wearers, past and present, include John F. Kennedy, Prince William, and Buzz Aldrin. Omega is owned by the Swatch Group

HISTORY

NIKE

NIKE

Nike, Inc. (officially pronounced /ˈnaɪki/, but sometimes pronounced /ˈ) is an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, development, manufacturing and worldwide marketing and selling of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, in the Portland metropolitan area. It is one of the world's largest suppliers of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$24.1 billion in its fiscal year 2012 as of 2012; it employed more than 44,000 people worldwide. In 2014 the brand alone was valued at

NIXON Watches

Founded in 1997 in Encinitas, California, Nixon is an American watches, accessories and audio brand. Focused on the youth lifestyle market, Nixon’s range of team-designed, custom-built products was first introduced at retail via independent boardsport retailers, including surf, skate, & snow shops. The brand’s range and popularity quickly grew to include distribution in

NIVADA Watches

Nivada is a Swiss watch company. It was founded in 1879 in the town of Grenchen, Switzerland.

HISTORY

Though founded in 1879, there is much confusion of who owns the actual rights to the brand name "Nivada". They display the line at the Swiss Basel Watch & Jewelry Fair every year.

In 1879, Nivada started as a small family business, but almost disappeared by the 1990s. During the late 90's Salinas Pliego and its company Grupo Salinas bought the brand from its original owners in Switzerland, the company was reborn and moved to Mexico in 2000. The brand focus now is to sell entry level watches. The brand has since grown to be one of the top watch manufacturers in Mexico and has become internationally recognized in recent years.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

ü  Rollamatic (also "Rollador") using Phenix 200 movements

ü   Reglavit, a water resistant watch with a unique external regulator screw

ü  Antarctic was a long-running series of watches initiated in 1958 in celebration of the International Geophysical Year, and using the ETA 2472 movement

ü   Depth master was a diving watch, water resistant to 1,000 M

ü   Depthomatic was another diving watch, water resistant to 200 M, and using the ETA 2472 movement

ü   Alertamatic was an alarm watch using the Lemania 2980 movement

ü   Ultramatic 36000 (1975) used the rare 36,000 A/h ETA 2734 movement

MOVADO Waches

Movado is a luxury watch brand, whose name is Esperanto for "movement" The brand's parent company, Movado Group, Inc., was founded in Switzerland in 1983 by Cuban-born Gedalio Grinberg. The company designs, manufactures, and distributes the following brands of watches in addition to its own: Ebel, Concord, ESQ Movado, Coach, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Juicy Couture and Tommy Hilfiger.

HISTORY

Movado was originally founded in 1881 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, by Achilles Ditesheim. In 1983, the company was purchased by Gedalio Grinberg, a Cuban-born Jew, who fled Fidel Castro's Marxist Revolution in 1960 with his family.

His son, Efraim Grinberg, is the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Movado Group, Inc. The North American President of Movado and ESQ by Movado is Alan Chinich. In 2006, Movado celebrated its 125th year of watch making. On February 23, 1999, Movado Group, Inc. completed the sale of Piaget business to VLG North America, Inc., for approximately $ 30 million.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The company is known for its iconic Museum Watch, designed by the American designer Nathan George Horwitt in 1947. It was originally manufactured by Vacheron & Constantin-Le Coultre Watches, Inc., Switzerland. Movado had started producing an unauthorized version starting in 1948, copying Horwitt's design. It was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in 1960. Movado finally settled with Horwitt in 1975 with a payment of $29,000. Following Horwitt's death, Movado started heavy promotion of Horwitt and the design of the Museum Watch. Photographer Edward Steichen called Horwitt's design "the only truly original and beautiful one for such an object"

MIDO Watches

Mido SA is a luxury Swiss watch making company founded in 1918.The watches are sold through 2400 authorized retailers in 50 countries around the world

HISTORY

Mido was founded in 1918 by George G. Schaeren in Biel, Switzerland. Mido comes from the Spanish phrase Yo mido meaning "I measure".

In the 1920s, Mido introduced elegant lady’s watches with color enameled shaped cases and modern straps as well as visually attractive timepieces for gentlemen in art deco style, which rapidly established the image required for the new brand name. Mido found a market in the flourishing automotive market by producing watches in the shape of radiator grills of a wide range of brands such as Buick, Bugatti, Fiat, Ford, Excelsior, Hispano-Suiza, etc.

In 1934, Mido launched the Multifort design, the first to use a self-winding automatic movement. It was also shock resistant, anti magnetic and water resistant all in one which remained in the forefront for over three decades right through to the sixties. Mido attained yet another milestone the same year when it launched watches with unbreakable mainsprings. This was also the very first time that any watch manufacturer utilized this type of spring within the market place. During this time period, Mido used a Robot as its ambassador as a symbol of progress and robustness. A comic strip from this era featured the Mido Robot and its adventures.

In 1945, Mido became the very first manufacturer to introduce a central-read chronograph wherein the stop watch function had all its hands arranged at the center. In 1954 the firm launched the world's most efficient winding mechanism.

Mido launched its Commander model in 1959. This utilized a one-piece case design, the very first of its type, as well as a novelty in the time. The one-piece case revolutionized the market, and enhanced the life span of watches considerably. The Mido Commander has survived to today, and it is among the world's most acknowledged watches with numerous unique designs, including an eighteen karat gold model. The lineup also contains chronographs and COSC certified chronometers. In 1967 Mido was distinguished as the maker of the world's thinnest ladies watch.

In 1970 Mido launched the Aquadura Crown Sealing system, an innovation that gained the reputation as the king of water-resistant watches. The Aquadura crown sealing technique makes use of an all-natural cork which is handled and formed to insure its water resistant qualities. This technique is utilized to seal the crown, the most susceptible place on a watch to water leakage.

During the nineties, the Mido World Timer was launched. This was a practical display that can show the local time anywhere on the planet. The user must only bring the desired city to the 12 o’clock position and press the crown to check the local time.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Ø  Novelties

Ø  Multifort

Ø  Great Wall

Ø  Ocean Star Captain

Ø  Mido Baroncelli Tonneau

Ø  Mido Belluna

Ø  Mido Commander Gold Limited Edition

Ø  Mido Commander Lady Diamonds

LACOSTE Watches

Lacoste (French pronunciation: ​) is a French clothing company founded in 1933 that sells high-end clothing, footwear, perfume, leather goods, watches, eyewear, and most famously polo shirts. In recent years, Lacoste has introduced a home line of sheeting and towels. The company can be recognized by its green crocodile logo. René Lacoste, the company's founder, was nicknamed "the Crocodile" by fans because of his tenacity on the tennis court. In November 2012 Lacoste was bought by Swiss family-held group Maus Frères.

HISTORY

 Lacoste founded La Chemise Lacoste in 1933 with André Gillier, the owner and president of the largest French knitwear manufacturing firm at the time. They began to produce the revolutionary tennis shirt Lacoste had designed and worn on the tennis courts with the crocodile logo embroidered on the chest. Although the company claims this as the first example of a brand name appearing on the outside of an article of clothing, the "Jantzen girl" logo appeared on the outside of Jantzen Knitting Mills' swimsuits as early as 1921. In addition to tennis shirts, Lacoste produced shirts for golf and sailing. In 1951, the company began to expand as it branched from "tennis white" and introduced color shirts. In 1952, the shirts were exported to the United States and advertised as "the status symbol of the competent sportsman," influencing the clothing choices of the upper-class. Lacoste was sold at Brooks Brothers until the late 1960s. It is still one of the most popular brands in the United States, sporting the "preppy wardrobe". In 1963, Bernard Lacoste took over the management of the company from his father René. Significant company growth was seen under Bernard's management. When he became president, around 300,000 Lacoste products were sold annually. The Lacoste brand reached its height of popularity in the US during the late 1970s and became the signature 1980s "preppy" wardrobe item, even getting mentioned in Lisa Birnbach's Official Preppy Handbook of 1980. The company also began to introduce other products into their line including shorts, perfume, optical and sunglasses, tennis shoes, deck shoes, walking shoes, watches, and various leather goods.

In the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, Izod and Lacoste were often used interchangeably because starting in the 1950s; Izod produced clothing known as Izod Lacoste under license for sale in the U.S. This partnership ended in 1993 when Lacoste regained exclusive U.S. rights to distribute shirts under its own brand. In 1977, Le Tigre Clothing was founded in an attempt to directly compete with Lacoste in the US market, selling a similar array of clothing, but featuring a tiger in place of the signature Lacoste crocodile.

More recently, Lacoste's popularity has surged due to French designer Christophe Lemaire’s work to create a more modern, upscale look. In 2005, almost 50 million Lacoste products sold in over 110 countries. Its visibility has increased due to the contracts between Lacoste and several young tennis players, including American tennis stars Andy Roddick and John Inner, French veteran Richard Gasquet, and Swiss Olympic gold medalist Stanislas Wawrinka. Lacoste has also begun to increase its presence in the golf world, where noted two time Masters Tournament champion José María Olazábal and Scottish golfer Colin Montgomerie have been seen sporting Lacoste shirts in tournaments.

Bernard Lacoste became seriously ill in early 2005, which led him to transfer the presidency of Lacoste to his younger brother and closest collaborator for many years, Michel Lacoste. Bernard died in Paris on March 21, 2006.

Lacoste licenses its trademark to various companies. Until recently, Devanlay owned the exclusive worldwide clothing license, though today Lacoste Polo Shirts are also manufactured under licence in Thailand by ICC and also in China. Pentland Group has the exclusive worldwide license to produce Lacoste footwear, Procter & Gamble owns the exclusive worldwide license to produce fragrance, and CEMALAC holds the license to produce Lacoste bags and small leather goods.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

In the early '50s, Bernard Lacoste teamed up with David Crystal, who at the time owned Izod, to produce Izod Lacoste clothing. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was extremely popular with teenagers who called the shirts simply Izod. While the union was both profitable and popular, Izod Lacoste's parent company (Crystal Brands, Inc.) was saddled with debt from other business ventures. When attempts to separate Izod and Lacoste to create revenue did not alleviate the debt, Crystal sold his half of Lacoste back to the French and Izod was sold to Van Heusen

LOIUS MOINET Watches

Louis Cartier (1875–1942) was a famous French watchmaker and businessman known worldwide for his watch designs. Cartier was passionate about mechanical pocket watches and had the goal of creating his own line of timepieces. Although Patek Philippe created the first wristwatch in 1868, Louis Cartier is responsible for helping to popularize it over the traditional pocket watch

HISTORY

In 1904, his Brazilian friend Alberto Santos-Dumont, an early aviation pioneer, asked Louis Cartier to design a watch that could be used during his flights, since pocket watches were not suitable. Louis Cartier created for him the Santos wristwatch, which was also the first wristwatch, made for men. Santos first went on sale in 1911, the date of Cartier's first commercial production of wristwatches. In Rue de la Paix he designed timepieces with the help of Edmond Jaeger who agreed to supply Cartier's watch line with movements

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The most important steps in Cartier's family business were made over several generations by the goldsmith Louis Francois Cartier, his son Alfred Cartier, and his three grandsons, Pierre, Jacque and Louis Francois. While his father Alfred managed the production of jewelry, Louis Francois and his two brothers, Pierre and Jacques, were the ones to help the family business expand. They eventually turned the Cartier brand into the most well-known name in the world of jewelry and watch making. In 1899 the Cartier family moved their Paris store to the elegant Rue de la Paix; later stores in London (1902), Moscow (1908) and New York (1909) followed.

In 1912 Cartier introduced two models still in production today, the Baignoire and Tortue; 1917 saw the debut of the Tank. It was also during this period that Cartier began adding reference numbers to the watches it sold, usually by stamping a four-digit code on the underside of a lug. In fact, many collectors refuse to accept a Cartier as an original unless these numbers are present.

KIENZLE Watches

KIENZLE Uhren GmbH is one of Germany's oldest watchmakers. Founded in 1822 in Schwenningen, the company headquarters has been in Hamburg since 2002.

HISTORY

In 1883 Jakob Kienzle married into the Schlenker family and hencefoward he contributed to the expansion of the company. In 1899, 162,000 watches and alarm clocks were made per annum. The name of the company was changed to Schlenker & Kienzle.

From 1894 onwards the weight and the cost of alarm clocks and wall clocks was significantly reduced by the introduction of the "American System" with standardized individual components and perforated plates. This process was highly innovative at that time. In 1897 Jakob Kienzle became the sole owner, with the name of the company being changed some time later to Kienzle. Watch production was continuously extended and modernized, and international activities expanded. In the following years branches in Milan, Paris and London were established.

In 1902 Kienzle launched the time stamp clock on the market, followed by inexpensive pocket watches, traveling clocks and wristwatches for ladies. The first clocks for automobiles were also made at that time. The so-called "Strapazier-Armbanduhr" was presented in 1931. This watch is extremely resilient because of its special construction. The watch model becomes a popular product, with 25 million examples sold.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

In 1997 Kienzle is taken over by the Highway Holdings Group. But only five years later in 2002 Kienzle returns to Germany with the establishment of Kienzle AG. The company employs over 400 workers in its new factory. Since that time the headquarters is located in Hamburg and Kienzle finds back to old success. The company purchases the worldwide brand and distribution rights and begins with the development and fabrication of three new watch collections in different price segments.

In 2008 Kienzle moves into the current headquarters, a time honored merchant's house in Hamburg-Harvestehude, which perfectly represents the company and its values: quality, tradition and innovation?

INVICTA Watches

Invicta Watch Group is an American-based watch company. Invicta Watch Group trades on the name "Invicta Watch Company" which was a company founded in 1837 by Raphael Picard in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The Picard family had owned and operated the company which produced Swiss mechanical timepieces offered at modest prices until the quartz movement revolution of the early 1970s.

HISTORY

In 1991 the company was purchased by a United States-based investment company. The corporate headquarters were relocated to Hollywood, Florida, where the company also operates its customer service call center.

The president of the Invicta Watch Group, Eyal Lalo, is a third generation watchmaker whose family has been involved with Invicta for many years.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Invicta Watch Group helped found and operate the non-profit Invicta Care Foundation which aids overlooked areas and charitable causes by providing financial support.

In 2005, The Invicta Care Foundation raised $127,846 to support disaster relief causes related to Hurricane Katrina. The donation was given to the American Red Cross to help those in need after the hurricane's destruction.

HERMES Watches

Hermès International S.A., Hermes of Paris, or simply Hermès (French pronunciationi) is a French manufacturer established in 1837, today specializing in leather, lifestyle accessories, perfumery, luxury goods, and ready-to-wear. Its logo, since the 1950s, is of a Duc carriage with horse.

HISTORY

The designers throughout the company's history have included Lola Prusac, Jacques Delahaye, Catherine de Karolyi, Monsieur Levaillant, Nicole de Vesian, Eric Bergère, Claude Brouet, Daniel Deakin, Alex Bartaska, Tan Giudicelli, Marc Audibet, Mariot Chane, Martin Margiela, Jean Paul Gaultier, Véronique Nichanian (current menswear designer), Christophe Lemaire (current womenswear designer).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Hermès sales are composed of about 30% leather goods, 15% clothes, 12% scarves, and 43% other wares. The company licenses no products and keeps tight control over the design and manufacture of its vast inventory

Contemporary Hermès scarves measure 90 cm × 90 cm, weigh 65 grams and are woven from the silk of 250 mulberry moth cocoons. All of the hems are hand-stitched. Scarf motifs are wide-ranging; Two silk-scarf collections per year are released, along with some reprints of older designs and limited editions. And two collections per year are introduced in a Cashmere/silk blend. Since 1937, Hermès has produced over 2,000 unique designs; the horse motif is particularly famous and popular.The seen-everywhere "Brides De Gala" version, introduced in 1957, has been produced more than 70,000 times. A Hermès scarf is sold somewhere in the world every 25 seconds; by the late 1970s more than 1.1 million scarves had been sold worldwide

HUBLOT Watches

Hublot - (French pronunciation: )- is a Swiss enterprise creating luxury watches and founded in 1980 by Italian Carlo Crocco. The company currently operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of France's LVMH. In 1980, it also marked the birth of 'Fusion' concept after a few months from its inception date.

HISTORY

A scion of the Italian Binda Group dynasty, best known for making Breil watches, Carlo Crocco left the company in 1976 to strike out on his own and create a new watch company. Moving to Switzerland he formed MDM Geneve and set about designing a watch that he named the Hublot after the French word for "porthole". The watch that he created featured the first natural rubber strap in the history of watch making. It took 3 years of research to create the strap. Despite failing to attract a single potential customer on the first day of its debut at the 1980 Basel Watch Fair, the watch quickly proved to be a commercial success with sales in excess of $2m in its first year.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

To date, Hublot has 50 Boutiques all over the world. In February 2007, Hublot opened its first mono-brand store in Paris, in the Rue Saint-Honoré. The second was opened in the summer of that year, in the Hôtel Byblos, Saint-Tropez. Today, Hublot has a flagship store on Bond Street, London. Stores in the United States are currently located in Atlanta, Bal Harbour, Beverly Hills, Boca Raton, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, New York City, and Palm Beach.

GUESS Watches

Guess Watches launched its collection in 1983 with a line of men’s and women’s fashion timepieces. Consistent with the Guess image, the ever evolving watches appeal to young, fashion-driven consumers around the world. Constant attention to new ideas and cutting-edge designs keep the brand exciting and relevant to today’s trends.

HISTORY

In 1981, the Marcianos founded a small fashion denim company in California which has grown to be one of the largest and most successful fashion brands in the world. Through their innovative design, marketing and distribution of fashion lifestyle products, GUESS has become one of the most widely recognised fashion leaders in the young contemporary women’s, men’s and kid’s markets.

 The Marciano brothers were raised in the south of France, a place rooted in passion and the essence of French style. Their love of the American West combined with a European sensibility became the driving force behind the creation of GUESS.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Guess Watches offer a wide range of styles for both men and women. Timepieces for women feature styles that range from trendy-casual to sophisticated-chic. The collection for men encompasses the best of masculine design, materials, and technology.

GRUEN Watches

The Gruen Watch Company was formerly one of the largest watch manufacturers in the United States. It was in business from about 1894 to 1958 and was based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

HISTORY

In 1900 the corporate name became D. Gruen, Sons & Co. The new company became partially a Swiss company. The movements were no longer made in Glasshütte, Germany, but in Switzerland again. 1903, a subsidiary was formed, “The Gruen Watch Manufacturing Company”, located in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.

Gruen was one of the first US watch companies to offer basic movements produced in Switzerland, in a wide variety of cases and prices, but adjusted, dialled and cased in U.S.A. Some of their finest movements were made by Jean Aegler (who became a business partner of Hans Wilsdorf, Rolex).

In 1904, the company introduced the VeriThin pocket watch movement, a new arrangement of components that allowed the movement to be made much thinner.

The first Gruen wristwatches were introduced in 1908. These found favor with women buyers, but were not popular with men at the time The company did not return to making wristwatches for men until World War I, when military use made wristwatches acceptable for men to wear.

Dietrich Gruen died in 1911, and control of the company passed to his son Frederick.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

M Gruen is owned worldwide by MZ Berger, Long Island City, and New-York, U.S.A. The China based company currently manufactures and distributes entry-level quartz wristwatches with Chinese cases mated to Chinese quartz movements into lower-end venues. Although the rights to the name "Gruen" were sold to MZ Berger, Gruen-branded watches produced after the 1970s have no other connection whatsoever to Gruen or the Gruen Watch Company.

GLYCINE Watches

Glycine is a Swiss wristwatch manufacturer. Glycine became a noteworthy watch maker in the early 1950s for the introduction of their Airman model, a 24 hour watch favored by both military and commercial pilots. The Airman was worn by many United States Air Force pilots during the Vietnam War. Glycine still makes several variants of the Airman. Other models in the Glycine line include the Incursore, Combat, and Lagunare series.

HISTORY

Since its founding by Eugène Meylan in 1914, Glycine has been producing watches at its factory in Bienne, Switzerland.

Meylan was an uncompromising watch engineer who strove for perfection and nothing less. He had a profound understanding of both the market demands and the possibilities offered by the technological advances of the time. Very soon, he succeeded in producing extremely precise, small movements for ladies watches, enabling Glycine to put on the market the finest miniature movements, clad in precious gold and platinum cases, often studded with diamonds.

Glycine became a supplier to the wealthy people who valued highly these works of fine craftsmanship. However, Meylan did not stop there. Around 1931, he presented to the world market a well-functioning self-winding watch, entirely of his own invention, a sensational performance that, for lack of capital, could not be exploited commercially. Some of these GLYCINE Eugène Meylan SA self-winding watches can still be found in the collectors' market.

The year 1934 saw the launch of a chronometer range, a line of watches passing the exacting tests of the Official Swiss Quality Control. The depression years of the 1930s and the approaching world war took a heavy toll on the company as Switzerland was cut off from nearly all its traditional export markets.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The products that had earned Glycine such an excellent reputation, namely high-quality mechanical watches and above all automatic watches, were suddenly no longer in general demand. Customers everywhere were buying Japanese quartz watches or American digital LED watches. The lucrative business with highly regarded automatic watches was over, and these were now being sold off at give-away prices.

The market went through a turnaround in its values, a tendency which further intensified as the price for the initially exorbitantly expensive quartz watches consistently dropped to a level where it finally drove even the cheap pin-pallet mechanical movements out of the market. Many market shares were lost, the industry entered into a crisis that lasted six years and cost roughly 60,000 jobs.

LOUIS GEORGE Watches

LOUIS GEORGE is a German watch brand based at Berlin, GermanyHISTORYThe brand name refers to the Berlin master watchmaker Louis George who became the 'watchmaker to King' Frederick the Great of Prussia on 26 December 1769.

 Louis George provided clocks, watches and instruments to 3 generations of kings of Prussia and other sovereigns all over Europe including France. He had business relations to Swiss watchmakers like Pierre Jaquet-Droz and Jean-Frederick Leschot. At the end of the 18th century Berlin was considered a watch making hub - mostly for organ or flute clocks with complicated music works attached released by the clock movement itself. The Louis George workshops of the Baroque era produced further more odometer or watches with complications, i.e. dead seconds watches with Pouzait escapement and early chronometer.BRIEF DESCRIPTIONModern LOUIS GEORGE watches are genuine luxurious wristwatches made from precious metals only. Nearly all the applied crafts and techniques are more or less can be called antique techniques - like fire enameling, original guilloche engraving or manual master engraving, manual gem setting. A group of several specialists provides the necessary services. Louis George watches are aiming for classiness. The philosophy of the brand is blending luxury and a timeless design in order to create watches that can pass on from one generation to another.

GENEVA WATCHES

Arguably the most well-known Universal watch of the post-war era was the Polerouter. Designed by Gérald Genta, it was originally produced as the Polarouter in 1954, appearing with a Cal 138SS Bumper movement. The following year it was replaced with the innovative Cal 215 microtor movement which, with minor changes and a name change (from Polarouter to Polerouter, in 1958), was produced until late 1969

HISTORY

On September 4, 2008, the Binda Group entered an agreement with private equity firm Heritage Partners to acquire 100 percent of Advance Watch Group Ltd., the U.S. watch and clock manufacturer doing business as Geneva Watch. Geneva Watch Group began producing timepieces in 1974 and is headquartered in New York. The company has around 1800 employees worldwide, split between locations in the US (300 in New York and Michigan) and the Far East (1500 in Hong Kong and China). The company makes and distributes its own surfer brand Freestyle and also licenses brands from Kenneth Cole, Tommy Bahama, Betsey Johnson, BCBG, Ted Baker, Mexx, Speedo, Elgin, Thomas Kinkade and Mudd Jeans.

During the year ending March 2008, Geneva recorded net revenues of US$192 million, and sold around 25 million watches. With the acquisition, Binda expects 2008’s total sale revenues to reach €450 million euros ($665 million). The company will be headed by Jeff Gregg, who will report to Gianni Pieraccioni, Binda Group managing director.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The original enabling statute, Loi sur le contrôle facultatif des montres (Law on the Voluntary Control of Watches), was enacted on November 6, 1886, and was amended on May 27, 1891, November 15, 1958, and December 9, 1959.

It established, in the canton of Geneva, an office for the voluntary inspection of the watches from Geneva at the School of Horology to examine and mark watch movements. In general, the watches may be marked if following an examination, they are recognized to have all qualities of good workmanship likely to ensure a uniform rate and durability and whose work, at a minimum was done on commission by workmen living the canton of Geneva.