News Two recently formed companies growing in renown and with promising prospects, Montres Villemont SA and Amundsen Oslo AS, are pooling their destinies as part of the Villemont Group. Ten million francs in the marriage dowry.
On 19 January this year a new watchmaking adventure got under way with the official announcement of the merger of Montres Villemont SA, a company founded in 2004 by Olivier Müller, and Amundsen Oslo AS, a Norwegian watch manufacturer set up in 2002 by the designer Jorgen Amundsen.
To provide the growth impetus required by Montres Villemont and Amundsen Oslo, the private equity company ValleyRoad Capital raised an initial CHF 10 million from private investors. This sum will be injected into a new holding structure, established in Geneva, which will absorb the two brands under the corporate name Villemont Group SA. In the first instance, the new entity will fully integrate both Montres Villemont and Amundsen Oslo, their shareholders receiving a minority stake in the company’s capital.
In order to create a veritable watchmaking group with extensive industrial capacities, Villemont Group will set up a workshop in Geneva, run by two watchmakers with recognised expertise who already work closely with Montres Villemont on watch casings. A percentage of the sum raised will also be invested in the group’s industrial facilities, notably its fleet of machines.
In the long run, Villemont Group will thus be able to stake its claim to the highly sought-after title of "manufacture horlogère" (watchmaking workshop) thanks to a vertically integrated structure that is crucial for ensuring sufficiently short production times and gaining a solid foothold in the universe of high-end watches. In this respect, the group’s sales network will gradually be extended to allow for selective distribution in all key markets, where Fine Watchmaking is going from strength to strength.
"The creation of this new integrated group represents a unique opportunity to invest in a fully-expanding sector," underlines Magali Berla Geay, partner and co-founder of ValleyRoad Capital alongside Pierre Kladny and Giovanni Locatelli. "Thanks to the recognised expertise of its directors, and notably Olivier Müller, who previously worked for Chopard and Omega, Villemont Group SA has the ideal basis for a successful launch, including state-of-the-art production facilities."
The new group’s strength lies in the fact that the two brands complement each other perfectly, sharing the same watchmaking DNA. Montres Villemont, naturally entitled to use the Swiss made label, has succeeded in forging an identity in the luxury segment thanks to the quality of its components, the inclusion of features (GMT, alarm, chronograph, etc) and designs that combine classicism and innovation. Jorgen Amundsen has launched a series of timepieces with a direct link to his great great-uncle Roald Amundsen, one of the finest explorers of the twentieth century and the first to reach the South Pole in 1911. The watches in the range have been designed to withstand the most extreme conditions in polar zones but also for sailing and aviation.
This exceptional historical background will act as a powerful vector for the group’s two product lines, extreme sports and classic elegance, for both men and women, sold under the Villemont brand to ensure consistency and take advantage of a name that is already established as a benchmark. To mark the birth of this new watchmaking entity, Montres Villemont and Amundsen Oslo have collaborated on the design of a one-of-a-kind timepiece, the Limited Edition Villemont Mario Julen Solar Navigator, paying tribute to the Everest expedition led by Mario Julen last spring, which commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the first Swiss team to reach the world’s highest peak. This self-winding mechanical watch is the perfect symbiosis of two styles, integrating all the features required for navigation: hours, minutes, seconds, date, a central alarm hand and a solar navigator, providing a manual alternative to the universal GPS.
February 06, 2007
