There’s some juicy news buzzing around the watch world this week. Watches of Switzerland, the biggest Rolex seller in the UK, has reportedly been in talks about being bought out and taken private.
The story came from Reuters, which said the company’s been quietly talking with potential buyers over the past few months. Nobody’s saying who these buyers are (yet). As you’d expect, the company isn’t commenting on any of this publicly. But the news alone was enough to send their stock price jumping, since investors clearly like the idea of a buyout.
Watches of Switzerland is a huge name in the watch world, with stores all over Europe and the US, and Rolex alone makes up half of everything they sell. They’ve been doing pretty well lately too, with strong sales especially in the US.
In an industry dominated by very few mega groups and severely lacking any serious competition, I’m not sure this is good news for anyone except the shareholders. But what do I know!