News The shareholders of Universo have until 9 June to vote on whether the world's largest manufacturer of watch hands should become part of the Swatch Group. Drawn up on the initiative of the Swatch Group, this offer has been accepted without reservations by Universo's board of directors. The Swatch Group has expressed its intention to safeguard and develop all Universo's activities, including its Universo Plastics SA division, which specialises in high-precision injected plastic components.
Universo, which is based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, employs a staff of around 550 at its workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Fleurier and Besançon, and produces over 100 million watch hands of all kinds every year. It is the main supplier of hands for the Swatch Group's various brands, which account for more than half its production. Its integration, how-ever, would not affect the continued supply of quality hands to all its customers outside the Swatch Group, which has always guaranteed the supply of watch components by its companies to interested parties. One of the main and immediate consequences of integration would be the further strengthening of Universo's production capacities, thereby enabling it to increase volume and reduce delivery times.
The integration of Universo into the Swatch Group will mark a new and significant step in the movement towards concentration and verticalisation in the watch industry. Independent for almost one hundred years, Universo was, in fact, a pioneer in this movement: its creation in 1909 by fifteen watch hand factories, followed later by several others, was part of a plan to group the whole sector into one company.
June 07, 2000