Watches and Wonders Helps Buoy Palexpo Finances

L’AGEFI Suisse/YouTube

The international exhibition center that hosts Watches and Wonders in Geneva loses money annually, but not because of the watch show.

In an interview Monday for Swiss radio show “Be to B,” the CEO of Palexpo, Claude Membrez, said Watches and Wonders is a great source of revenue that has helped narrow the Swiss convention center’s annual losses. Palexpo, a porte-manteau for “Palais des Expositions,” is a semi-private foundation run by Mr. Membrez while its buildings — situated near Geneva airport — are owned by the canton of Geneva.

With the cancellation of the Geneva International Motor Show, the fourth cancellation since the pandemic, Palexpo has struggled to break even and is on track to register another loss for 2023.

Still, the increased popularity of Watches and Wonders allows Palexpo to “limit the damages,” Mr. Membrez said. Palexpo revenues have dropped from 95 million Swiss francs, in 2019, to 57 million last year and has registered a deficit of “several millions.”

The losses have shrunk thanks in part to the watch fair, according to Mr. Membrez. Started by the Richemont group and called “SIHH” until 2019, Watches and Wonders has taken on a new dimension with the full backing of Rolex and the closure of Baselworld. Rolex CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour chairs the Watches and Wonders Geneva Foundation. The annual watch show “will grow more and more,” Mr. Membrez predicts.

In 2024, Watches and Wonders will host 55 brands, the most in its history.

Bucherer and Sotheby's Strike Deal

Photo courtesy: Sotheby’s

As Rolex announced last August it planned to buy Bucherer, Bucherer said it has just partnered with one of the oldest auction houses in the world, Sotheby’s, to create an ultra-luxury boutique experience. And it will be inside Bucherer’s flagship boutique in Zurich.

"Sotheby's Salon at Bucherer" will let customers buy (and sell) ultra-rare pieces. Situated on an entirely new third floor of Bucherer’s store in Zurich, the Salon is a 160-square meter (1,722 square-foot) space that aims to offer clients an environment with some of the rarest luxury and art items in the world, including jewellery, watches, handbags and accessories, sneakers and high-end streetwear, artworks and sports memorabilia throughout the floor, a press release said.

Rolex Website No Longer Has 'Price on Request'

From Rolex.com

In a change of policy on Rolex’s website, the brand now displays retail prices for all its watches, even the pricier ones. Before the change, pieces with price tags above a certain threshold — $60,000 in the U.S, £40,000 in the U.K. — would display "price on request."

The aim would provide increased transparency to potential clients looking to buy Rolex’s top-of-the-catalog pieces.

From Rolex.com

The change in policy reveals some interesting surprises. How much does that platinum Day-Date cost if you’d like to upgrade the bezel from fluted to diamond?

A Day-Date 40 Ice blue on platinum will set you back $63,000. The same watch with a diamond-set bezel and markers is listed at $116,300, an extra $53,300 for the upgrade.

Marlon Brando’s Rolex GMT Back on the Market

Marlon Brando's unpolished Rolex GMT-Master so famously spotted in “Apocalypse Now” will be for sale — again.

The GMT-Master reference 1675, which was manufactured in 1972 and seen without a bezel on the wrist of “Colonel Walter E. Kurtz,” will be auctioned off at Christie’s on Nov. 6. Mr. Brando himself engraved "M. Brando" on the back of the watch.

It was sold by Phillips for $1,952,000 to Mohammed Zaman in 2019. Christie's pre-sale estimate: $1 million to $2 million.

Photo credit: Jake’s Rolex World