Horological Meandering

MTF
[PuristS]
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The China Syndrome

Soprod is a Swiss manufacturer of movements that supplies ebauches and movement modules to many brands. Soprod’s core business consists of assembling mechanical movements and developing additional modules giving further functionalities to mechanical movements.

Swiss movement manufacturers have started making completely cased watches and the brand just prints it's name on the watch; I don't know if Soprod has advanced to that level of supply yet.

STM Holding SA (Soprod SA, Swissebauches SA, SFT SA and InTech SA)

Peace Mark (Holdings) Limited of Hong Kong bought Swiss company STM Holding SA and "controls" the entire interest of Swissebauches, Soprod and SFT in 2007. This has greater ramifications for the global watchmaking and luxury retailing than first realised.

Swissebauches is principally engaged in mass production of timepiece movements (quartz analogue, digital and ana-digital) in Swissebauches brand. It has a long-established clientele in Europe, North America, Far East and China. SFT offers high quality quartz movements to world-class customers..

It enables Peace Mark to have a stable source of high quality timepiece movements at competitive price. This strategic partnership with a Swiss brand is of importance to Peace Mark’s vertically integrated business model. Some leading luxury mechanical movement manufacturers seem to have started reducing supply to overseas independent third parties.

Tianjin Seagull Watch Co

In July 2007, Peace Mark acquired 51% shares of Tianjin Seagull Watch Company (“Tianjin Seagull”), a state-owned enterprise, which is the largest mechanical movement factory in China holding a 40% share of the market. Tianjin Seagull can produce up to 6 million mechanical movements a year. 70% of its products are for the domestic market and the rest are sold to international brands. There are potential synergies in Peace Mark, Soprod and Tianjin Seagull becoming allies.

Peace Mark and Sincere Watch

In China, Peace Mark operates an extensive fashion watch retail network (TimeZone) and the joint venture, Peace Mark Tourneau, to lead its distribution and retailing business with over 100 mid-range and luxury watch brands in the Greater China Region. With strong design and manufacture capabilities of watches and movements, the Group also manufactures and distributes timepieces to markets including the USA, China, Europe and other Asian countries. Its advanced production facilities are located in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin, China, and Bienne, Switzerland.

In April 2008, Peace Mark completed the acquisition of Sincere Watch, the Singapore-based holding company of the Sincere Watch Group, which is one of Asia’s longest-standing retailers and distributors of brand-name luxury watches with a network including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, the PRC, India, Australia, South Korea and Indonesia. The Sincere Watch Group now carries a portfolio of over 40 internationally acclaimed brands and enjoys exclusive agency rights for 15 brands, including Franck Muller, de GRISOGONO, A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe.

The whole point of this "The China Syndrome" is that soon, a Chinese owned conglomerate will dominate vertical integrated supply chain of luxury timepieces on global industrial scale......

Enjoy! 

MTF

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