Girard-Perregaux Brand Ownership History Collection

From the Archives …

The Girard and Perregaux family sold the maison to the Graef family in 1927.

The Graef family owned GP for 52 years. Not having any heirs to take over the maison, the Graef family sold GP to DESCO on September 6, 1979.

DESCO was/is a powerful and publicity averse company and they owned parts of many maisons including Audemars-Piguet. Yes, GP and AP had the same owners for about 10 years. 😲

DESCO would eventually sell GP to the General Manager Francois (Francis) Besson of GP in what was the first management buy-out in 1988.

Besson would in turn sell GP to Luigi Macaluso in 1992.

19 years later, upon the untimely death of Luigi Macaluso in 2010, GP would be sold to the Kering Group in 2011.

Approximately 10 years later, in December 2021, Kering would sell GP (and UN) into its management and some unnamed investors. This would be the second management buyout in the history of GP.

Now you know …

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Google translation of the newspaper report from 1979 …

Girard-Perregaux's Great Hopes

While we remain more or less indifferent in big "things" like ASUAG, SSIH or the impassive Kelton, where compartmentalization and specialization often cultivate anonymity, the waltz of actions affects the personnel of a medium-sized company much more. Sure, the promises of fresh blood and a new spirit, but what will the future hold? This is perhaps what the 192 employees of Girard-Perregaux and Consul were wondering yesterday morning at the International Museum of Watchmaking. The other thirty-two are in New York. They will find out soon enough.

• NEW MARKETS

But Mr. C. D. Bezzola, CEO of Desco, quickly broke the ice. No dark clouds are hanging over the La Chaux-de-Fonds factory, quite the contrary, since only certain shareholders who have been asked to hand in their aprons will pay the price. Of course, they didn't beat around the bush: the 12,000 registered shares of 100 francs each went into Desco's pocket. That's 60% of the votes at a shareholders' meeting. But thanks to this majority stake of the Zurich residents in the old and lively watchmaking company, Girard-Perregaux will inevitably strengthen its presence in its current markets and reach new ones.

This will be the case in Japan, where the Zurich residents have been well established for almost a century and where the La Chaux-de-Fonds residents were not sufficiently established. And it will only be fair since for nearly two hundred years, Girard-Perregaux ex-Bautte has been known

for its quality and technical innovations, from the first wristwatches of the German Navy in 1880 to today's quartz chronometers, including the "36,000 alternations".

• SILK FROM CHINA AND JAPAN...

But Desco in all this? It is the kind of hushed holding company where discretion is the order of the day. It will never be mentioned in "Business Week", which does not have anything but disadvantages! Desco is one of the heads of the Zurich holding company Schulthess SA which oversees a group of companies called "international trade" and whose turnover is around a quarter of a billion francs. In short, a specialist in import-export, this big word which says everything and nothing at the same time and generally ensures comfortable incomes.

The beginnings date back to the end of the 19th century with counters in Yokohama and Shanghai, Schulthess then making a name for itself as an importer of raw silk. With the end of the Second World War, Schulthess began a policy of expansion and diversification in four main directions: to surgical and medical equipment, consumer goods and raw materials is added, quite naturally since we are in Switzerland, the watch trade. Schulthess-Desco is Audemars Piguet in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, in Australia it is still Longines and Eterna-Certina in the Colony.

In addition, the holding company has controlled for about twenty years a small watchmaking company in Saignelégier, "Tiara", which employs about fifty people and has specialized in an otherwise thankless genre of …