Editor’s Note
Richemont has sold its historic watch brand Baume & Mercier to Italy’s Damiani group, ending years of speculation about the brand’s future.
The Swiss luxury conglomerate Richemont, owner of brands such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Montblanc, has announced the sale of watchmaker Baume & Mercier to the Italian jewelry group Damiani. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Rumors about the future of the firm had been circulating in the industry in recent years, given its deficit-ridden financial performance. Speculation continues regarding Richemont, which is seen as a potential target for luxury giants like France’s LVMH. The company may opt, as it did with Baume & Mercier, to gradually divest its less profitable brands, such as Roger Dubuis, as also indicated by market sources.
With this acquisition, the Damiani group, led by the third generation of the founding family (Guido, Silvia, and Giorgio Damiani), expands its luxury product portfolio. This portfolio includes the jewelry brands Damiani, Salvini, Bliss, and Calderoni, as well as Venini, which produces artistic glass in Murano, Italy, and the multi-brand watch and jewelry distributor Rocca.
Richemont, which owns other century-old brands like Piaget and Vacheron Constantin, acquired Baume & Mercier, whose origins date back to 1830, in 1988. It once enjoyed notoriety, deploying an entry-price strategy for Swiss watchmaking, with a model, the Hampton, which was a sales success in the nineties. Later, it fell behind competitors like Longines. In recent times, its management team had undergone several changes: in 2018, Geoffroy Lefebvre was appointed CEO. Less than a year later, he was succeeded by David Chaumet, who was replaced by Michael Guenoun in 2024.
In Spain, Jean-Claude Morgeli took over the distribution of Baume & Mercier in 2021 after the closure of the Diarsa Group, which handled distribution for Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Gibraltar. Morgeli operated through the company B.O.T.M Back On The Market, which he founded that year after leaving Diarsa.