rdenney
371
The story is more nuanced than that…
Blum was working the arrangement with Lemania starting in 1991, well before the Investcorp acquisition in ‘94. At the time, though, Ebel owned 25% of Heuer, bought from the Piaget family when they were acquired by Cartier, and had access to Lemania through that avenue as well. It could be argued that Breguet’s version of the Lemania 1350 derives from Ebel’s modifications, which included adding magic-fingers bi-directional winding, so that Ebel brought more to the investcorp family than it received.
The relationship was between Sandro Arabian and Blum, and Arabian brought in Investcorp. Ebel was profitable but made vulnerable by the problems Blum was having with his non-watch investments, exacerbated by the credit crunch following the S&L Crisis. He hoped Cartier would be the buyer, but alas…
Blum attempted to re-acquire Ebel in 2004, but Gerry Grinberg got there first.
HAGWE.
-Rick
Seems to be Ebel season 😊👍🏻
Movado sucks