{"id":94122,"date":"2026-06-29T17:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/94122\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:04:20","slug":"swiss-watchmaking-evolution-vam-investments-forms-groupe-chaumont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/94122\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss Watchmaking Evolution: Vam Investments Forms Groupe Chaumont"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMILAN \u2014 The landscape of Swiss watchmaking<\/a> is being reshaped with the arrival of a new group on the scene.<\/p>\n

\n\tVam Investments has acquired Efteor, Le Composant, T\u00e9l\u00f4s Watch and Henri Robert, all specialists in the design and manufacture of movements and components for the high-end Swiss watchmaking industry, leading to the establishment of Groupe Chaumont.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe newly formed group will be headquartered in the key watchmaking hub of Neuch\u00e2tel, Switzerland, and will be helmed by Umberto Macchi di Cellere as chief executive officer. A cofounder of the group with Vam Investments, Macchi di Cellere over the years has held the roles of managing director of Bulgari Watches<\/a>, head of sales at the Bulgari<\/a> Group and former CEO of Tod\u2019s <\/a>Group.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe high-end watchmaking market requires components of absolute quality and precision. Against this backdrop, Groupe Chaumont aims to be an industrial partner capable of bringing together, under a single Swiss banner, the finest savoir-faire \u2014 from cases to movements, from cutting tools to the development of complications,\u201d said Macchi di Cellere. \u201cOur ambition is to build an industrial group where outstanding companies, deeply rooted in the Swiss Made tradition and led by talented entrepreneurs, can share their experience, expertise and resources. Together we will build the leading platform dedicated to components for high-end watchmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tUmberto Macchi di Cellere<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRiccardo Bonetti e Valerio Zanic<\/p>\n

\n\tL\u00e9onis Tafaj, CEO of Efteor and Le Composant; Franck Orny\u00a0and Johnny Girardin,\u00a0co-CEOs of\u00a0T\u00e9l\u00f4s Watch, and Thibault Richard, CEO of Henri Robert and board member Laurent Ryser will reinvest in the group, becoming shareholders while continuing to lead their respective companies. This ownership structure aims to ensure long-term alignment of interests and allows them to participate directly in Groupe Chaumont\u2019s future growth.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are proud to be the founding companies of this initiative,\u201d stated Tafaj, speaking on behalf of Orny, Girardin, Richard and Ryser. \u201cWe strongly believe in the project and in the value of collaboration. The opportunity to combine our expertise and experience while continuing to provide our customers with the highest standards of quality, reliability and innovation represents an outstanding growth opportunity. We look forward to welcoming new partners to Groupe Chaumont as we continue to expand the range of products and services offered by the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis strategy follows the blueprint of Gruppo Florence, cofounded in 2020 by a consortium of investors led by Vam Investments with Fondo Italiano d\u2019Investimento and Italmobiliare. Gruppo Florence was established with the goal of developing a platform to supply high-quality Made in\u00a0Italy<\/a>\u00a0products to major luxury fashion brands, leveraging competitive prices, guaranteeing prompt and flexible deliveries and solutions, while aiming to safeguard the technical and cultural know-how of small and medium-sized family-owned Italian companies, whose founders also become shareholders and continue to work with the group.<\/p>\n

\n\tToday, chaired by former CEO Attila Kiss, it counts 35\u00a0production facilities<\/a>\u00a0across nine Italian regions, about 4,500 employees, and active collaborations with more than 100 international brands. Fabrizio Ciafrei succeeded Kiss in the CEO role, as reported.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarco Piana, managing partner of Vam Investments, a private equity operator specializing in buyout investments and buy-and-build strategies previously chaired by the late Bulgari<\/a> heir Francesco Trapani, said Groupe Chaumont will allow Vam to enter \u201ca strategic sector that is critical to the competitiveness of the Swiss high-end watchmaking industry, partnering with entrepreneurs who share a strong industrial vision and a genuine commitment to building a long-term consolidation platform. The decision by the founding entrepreneurs to reinvest a significant portion of their proceeds and become shareholders in the group is a defining feature of the transaction and a strong vote of confidence in the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piana touted this model as \u201cthe most effective,\u201d allowing the group \u201cto support the growth of each individual company within a collaborative platform, backed by a professional management team capable of enhancing their expertise, preserving their identity and strengthening their unique savoir-faire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBased on this concept of collaboration and sharing of knowledge, Groupe Chaumont\u2019s ambition is to become the partner of choice for watchmaking houses, ensuring production capacity, quality, traceability, stability and continuity of know-how.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs reported, exports of Swiss-made watches<\/a> slumped by 16.6 percent to 2.1 billion Swiss francs in April, according to figures published by\u00a0the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decline reflected that U.S.-bound shipments fell 56.4 percent compared to April a year ago, which had seen\u00a0exports<\/a>\u00a0skyrocket as watchmakers sought to anticipate the effects of the tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump. Despite this unfavorable comparison, the industry body pointed out that exports of Swiss watches<\/a> to the American market had grown 8.9 percent against April 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe number of units also shrank 10 percent in the month, with 129,000 fewer timepieces being exported. Since the beginning of the year, exports have fallen a cumulated 3.9 percent against 2024\u2019s figures.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy materials, only the \u201cother metals\u201d category saw growth in April, rising 10 percent in value and 3.5 percent in volume. Meanwhile, the dominant steel category contracted in volume and value, 18.1 percent and 10.6 percent respectively. Precious metal timepieces saw the biggest decline, contracting by around a quarter in both metrics.<\/p>\n

\n\tSave for watches priced between 200 and 500 Swiss francs at export price, other categories decreased, with high-end timepieces recording the largest drop at 21.3 percent and 19 percent in units and value respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 The landscape of Swiss watchmaking is being reshaped with the arrival of a new group on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[28782,41,17,47011,1233],"class_list":["post-94122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-bulgari","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-todu2019s","tag-watches"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116834485474336542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}