Chapter 543 Richard Miller

Chapter 543 Richard Miller

In addition, Parmigiani can also use Gucci-Hermès's channels for top consumers to expand the sales of its watches.

It can be said that all of this is the most favorable outcome for Parmigiani.

After spending a few days with Beatrice in Switzerland, Barron finally decided to acquire the watchmaking industry of the Santos family.

Gucci-Hermès Group will acquire the remaining 75% of the shares of VMF Movement Factory from the Santos Foundation, and also obtain 75% of the shares of Parmigiani. The remaining 25% of the shares will still be in the hands of Michel Parmigiani, the founder of Parmigiani.

It must be said that Barron's aristocratic status also played a certain role in the acquisition, just like his personal use of Bentley Mulsanne sedans, which made many wealthy people interested in this new Bentley flagship. In the field of luxury goods, he, the old money class with "noble blood", can play a leading role.

When Barron returned to London to attend the annual Guardian Day event, Hadera Payne, senior vice president of Gucci-Hermès Group responsible for acquisitions and management of watch business, also approached another young watch brand, Richard Mille.

Richard Mille is still very well-known more than ten years later. When mentioning this brand, many people may first think of "very expensive"!

Indeed, Richard Mille's watches are very expensive, with an average price of US$180,000, which is about 1.24 million yuan in Chinese currency, and it is not uncommon to see watches worth tens of millions of Chinese currency - this is far more than the price of high-end brands in many people's traditional impressions, such as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, Lange and so on.

Therefore, it is also called "the billionaire's ticket"...

In fact, Richard Mille, the founder of Richard Miller, himself, has no knowledge of watchmaking or repairing. His biggest connection with watches is that he worked in Seiko and a French jewelry and watch shop before he was 50 years old, and worked in luxury marketing and management.

He founded his own watch brand at the age of 50, that is, after he was over half a century old.

Years of experience in luxury marketing and management have told Richard Mille that many customers with huge purchasing power are no longer satisfied with buying traditional precious metal watches such as Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. They need "different" products.

At that time, the only ones that could be seen in the market were Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak, Royal Oak Offshore, and Franck Muller.

But they were not "different" enough, not "out of the ordinary" enough!

Therefore, "different" has become the foundation of the Richard Miller brand.

Having a highly recognizable appearance design is not enough. Richard Miller watches also need a sufficiently powerful inner "core".

At first, Richard Miller's watches used movements produced by Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP).

APRP was co-founded by former Audemars Piguet employees Dominique Renaud and Giulio Papi in 1986. Its main focus is on designing, developing, and producing high-end complex movements, and it does not produce finished watches.

The behind-the-scenes technology of many big brands comes from APRP, including Audemars Piguet, Lange, IWC, Chanel, and Cartier.

APRP was originally called "RP", but in 1992, due to funding problems, Dominique Renaud and Giulio Papi sold most of their shares to Audemars Piguet, which was fully controlled by Audemars Piguet and renamed "APRP".

In 2001, after two years of preparation, development, design, and production, Richard Miller released the first watch in the brand's history, the RM001.

At that time, the tourbillon was not as common as it was later. With the unique barrel-shaped case, sapphire dial and other design elements, Richard Miller's watches became a hit as soon as they were launched.

The technical force behind their early watches came from APRP.

In fact, for a long time, Richard Miller could only produce the case and other appearance parts independently, and the core movement still needed to be purchased from outside.

In other words, Richard Miller has finally become a company that can produce watch cases after more than ten years of hard work since its establishment.

But Audemars Piguet holds nearly 80% of APRP's shares. According to the contract between them, half of the high-end movements produced by APRP must be supplied to Audemars Piguet, and the other half can be sold out - as the son of Audemars Piguet, APRP must give priority to meeting Audemars Piguet's needs.

This is embarrassing for Richard Miller, who has no R&D capabilities at the moment. After all, they are also in competition with APRP. Once Richard Miller's brand develops well, maybe one day he will not be able to get movements from APRP - or APRP will be a little clever and sell Richard Miller defective products and delay the delivery time...

This will definitely cause Richard Miller to run into big trouble, so it is still necessary to prepare for a rainy day.

In the original time and space, just this year, in order to be able to cooperate with APRP for a long time, Richard Miller almost sold and gave away 10% of their shares to Audemars Piguet in a half-sale and half-gift manner, becoming Audemars Piguet's "godson"...

Even further, some of Richard Miller's stores were also handed over to Audemars Piguet for operation.

But now, they have another choice, which is the VMF movement that is about to be acquired by the Gucci-Hermès Group.

In fact, in the original time and space, Richard Miller later used the VMF movement. After all, even if they sold 10% of their shares, they knew that eggs should not be put in one basket.

At that time, the three major buyers of the VMF movement were Parmigiani, Hermès and Richard Miller.

Now, before Richard Miller took the initiative to transfer his shares to Audemars Piguet, Hadera Payne, senior vice president of the watchmaking business of the Gucci-Hermès Group, found Richard Mille and said that after acquiring VMF, they would be able to provide a stable supply for Richard Miller. Of course, the prerequisite is that the other party needs to "reasonably" transfer a part of the shares to them.

This can be said to be a perfect match between the two parties. After all, VMF itself produces the top-level movement, which is completely in line with Richard Miller's positioning, and the sales channels and customer groups of the Gucci-Hermès Group in the luxury industry are completely "tailor-made" for Richard Miller.

It can be said that compared with Audemars Piguet, the Gucci-Hermès Group is a more ideal "godfather" candidate for Richard Miller.

And who is the boss of Gucci-Hermès?

That is one of the richest and most noble people in the world-His Royal Highness the Duke of Devonshire, who has hundreds of years of top aristocratic history in England!

If this serious "child of heaven" can wear Richard Miller's watch in daily life, this style will be firmly supported immediately. Is there any better advertisement than this?

Therefore, Richard Mille did not hesitate too much and immediately agreed. They will sell 25% of its shares to Gucci-Hermès Group at a low price, and the watches launched later will start to use VMF movements.

But there is only one condition, that is, His Royal Highness the Duke of Devonshire needs to wear Richard Miller's watch in some public occasions.

In fact, a considerable part of Richard Miller's success later was due to its successful marketing. They sponsored many activities and invited the biggest stars to endorse Richard Miller's watches to establish its style.

Now it can be said that it is a dream come true for Richard Miller to have such a top aristocratic "endorsement".