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Rolex and Bucherer are two giants in the luxury goods business. How does the secretive player from Lucerne tick?
The Bucherer company is a company with a number of contradictions. For one thing, time seems to have stood still. A lot is the way it has always been. For example, the discretion: Bucherer gives no interviews, no business figures, hardly any information about the operation – and this at a time when most companies of this size regularly provide information about the business.
But the strategy is also the same as it has been for decades: Bucherer sells watches and jewelry in large branches, while the competition has long been pushing online trading.
Jörg Bucherer, the busy patron
Chairman of the Board Jörg Bucherer embodies the family business. The 87-year-old’s fortune is estimated at more than two billion Swiss francs by the “Bilanz” magazine. No wonder discretion is the top priority. This business is about the rich and wealthy, watches and jewelry – you’d rather avoid headlines.
But even if the Lucerne-based company remains silent, it pulls the strings in the background and is pursuing an aggressive expansion strategy: the branch network is constantly being expanded. About five years ago, Bucherer took over the largest watch retailer in the USA, the Tourneau company from New York with 600 employees.
Caption: Everyday image: the Bucherer branch at Schwanenplatz in Lucerne on August 22, 2023. Keystone/Urs Flüeler
Previously, Bucherer had already swallowed up a large retailer in Great Britain. Bucherer, headquartered in Lucerne, runs around 100 stores worldwide with 2,400 employees. In the metropolises of New York, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Las Vegas and Zurich. Sales are estimated at 1.8 billion Swiss francs.
In one fell swoop, Rolex also becomes a retailer
Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for the family company founded in 1888. Company patron Jörg Bucherer sells his company to Rolex in the third generation because he has no children and no successor in the family.
Of course, there are no figures for the takeover price. A bank estimates the value of Bucherer at more than four billion francs. The takeover makes Rolex, the world‘s largest manufacturer of luxury watches, much bigger in one fell swoop. It’s a bang because Rolex only produced watches and didn’t run their own shops.
Rolex and Bucherer, the world‘s largest watch and jewelry retailer, are a good fit because they have similar corporate cultures. Both of them are secretive. In this regard, time has stood still at Rolex.