Hublot - Picks up BNB's Pieces
WORLDTEMPUS - 27 January 2010
During a press conference yesterday in Nyon, BNB CEO Matthias Buttet revealed that Hublot was his only client actually paying for stock. Not only this, but just this month Hublot CEO Jean-Claude Biver also placed additional orders with BNB and bought a number of components at full price before the liquidation began this week so that watchmaker and engineer salaries could be paid even though it was already clear that the company would end up in severe difficulty. Hublot was BNB's biggest client.
"We already hired close to 10 of BNB's watchmakers last year," Biver explained to Worldtempus this morning. "And now we are in the process of making a proposal for another 25 to 30 of BNB's watchmakers to come work on our premises. A special area will be created for them so they can continue to work on the products they are used to."
Factory space
This news comes on the heels of the inauguration of Hublot's own new factory in Nyon just a few months ago. Biver had already created the concept of Hublot's Unico movements to replace the complete dependency on Swatch Group products and establish the 30-year-old brand as a true manufacture. Though the world economic crisis was already in full bloom at the time, Biver decided to continue his investment in the new factory and movement bases to ensure a b position for the brand when the crisis ends.
Hublot will now also take over machinery, benches, and tools from the defunct 2,000-square-meter BNB factory in Duillier, just outside Nyon, also recently inaugurated.
"Now we have sufficient space in our new building for the people, and the machines, benches and so on will be integrated . With the 30 people we are going to take over, we will significantly complete our manufacture concept," he says.
Future
"The main idea is not to lose the inheritance and the knowledge developed by BNB since its foundation," Biver explained of the innovative watchmaker whose products significantly helped Hublot to its current status. BNB, which stood for the initials of founders Mathias Buttet, Michel Navas, and Enrico Barbasini, was founded in the spring of 2004. It counted only four employees—including the bosses, who had been dissatisfied with working for other brands—at that time. In 2007 Buttet bought out the other partners and convinced EPF Partners to invest. Buttet, the creative force behind the tremendous movements, remained the majority shareholder.
In May 2009, 209 qualified personnel were employed by BNB proper, while another 126 worked for acquired subsidiaries Subtec and Generale Ressorts, an important supplier of mainsprings.
"We may continue to deliver movements to third party customers as did before," says Biver.
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