The dormant Danish watch firm City Jürgensen was “resurrected” in Los Angeles on Thursday following a $25 million revamp that its US backers hope will land it a seat at luxurious watchmaking’s high desk inside 5 years.
Acquired by a gaggle of buyers led by the American Rosenfield household in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, City Jürgensen was initially based in Copenhagen in 1773 and is revered by watch connoisseurs and collectors. However exterior that bubble, the identify is essentially unknown.
In line with its co-chief govt Alex Rosenfield, the bubble must burst.
“We expect that what we’re making are watches that individuals who love and care about watches will love and care about, however the world of people that can take pleasure in what we’re doing is far bigger than that,” Rosenfield advised the Enterprise of Trend. “Too typically, watch corporations make you’re feeling like if you happen to don’t perceive the escapement, we don’t wish to speak to you. Our objective is completely the other. It must be past the obsessives.”
Rosenfield is new to the watch business. Certified as a lawyer, he held plenty of model technique roles in media and style earlier than becoming a member of Guggenheim Companions, the US funding and monetary companies agency, which says it has greater than $345 billion of belongings underneath administration. Rosenfield’s father Andy is the agency’s president and likewise an avid watch collector, shopping for his first City Jürgensen watch within the Nineties. Rosenfield Sr, who will proceed to advise the corporate, and his philanthropist spouse Betty hosted the relaunch at their $33 million Brentwood mansion.
Rosenfield, who is predicated in Los Angeles, mentioned his household had by no means supposed to purchase a watch firm however stepped in to accumulate City Jürgensen after listening to it had fallen on laborious occasions, so they might return it to “individuals who will adore it and push it ahead.”
The Rosenfields, who’re reported to personal 85 p.c of the corporate, have assembled a powerful forged checklist. The corporate’s different co-chief govt is Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish watchmaker thought of one of many best abilities of his technology. Voutilainen has a minority stake in City Jürgensen, in addition to his personal unbiased watch firm, which makes round 60 items a 12 months.
City Jürgensen’s model identification was developed by Winkreative in London and Chandelier Artistic in New York underneath Rosenfield’s path, with a launch marketing campaign known as Time Nicely Spent shot by Ellen von Unwerth, the award-winning style photographer and filmmaker.
The corporate is ready to observe the high-value, low-volume mannequin set by a lot of at present’s most profitable unbiased watch manufacturers. In line with Rosenfield, in its first 12 months, City Jürgensen will produce round 70 watches.
Three fashions had been launched at Thursday’s launch, with costs starting from round $115,000 for the UJ-2 to $410,000 for the UJ-1, which shall be restricted to 75 items. Every has a brand new mechanical motion designed in-house by Voutilainen and hand-finished and assembled on the firm’s Swiss facility within the metropolis of Biel/Bienne, the place watchmaking big Omega is predicated. Presently, it employs 20 folks, round half of them watchmakers.
“The concept is to carry the glory of the City Jürgensen of the nineteenth century again,” Voutilainen mentioned, referring to a interval when the corporate made watches for the Danish royal courtroom. “That is simply the beginning block. Our goal is to make City Jürgensen a brand new reference level in wonderful watchmaking.”
The revival of City Jürgensen is available in a busy season of watch model rebirths. The personal equity-backed Swiss firm Breitling has in recent times acquired Common Genève and Gallet, two dormant manufacturers now slated for a comeback subsequent 12 months. Final 12 months, Silvercity Manufacturers, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate KDDL, revived the 18th century firm Favre-Leuba, whereas the US founding associate of the mergers and acquisitions agency Duffy & Sweeney, Michael Sweeney, reintroduced the American watch model Benrus in April.
Rosenfield mentioned he believed the current glut of acquisitions and relaunches of forgotten dial names was signal that luxurious patrons desire a human connection to their purchases. “We’re so estranged from work with our fingers and hand-making and issues which might be human, and now I feel we’d like this [these brands] greater than we ever did,” he mentioned.
Initially, City Jürgensen watches shall be bought direct to shopper. No pre-orders had been taken, in line with Rosenfield, who mentioned that in time his technique allowed for a couple of “pop-ups and workplaces that function showrooms” that might be “locations to entertain as a lot as to promote”, a mannequin that has proved profitable for Audemars Piguet, which has greater than doubled its revenues over the previous decade via its community of laid-back AP Home ideas.
Voutilainen mentioned the ambition was to develop to between 1,000 and 1,200 watches a 12 months in 5 years, placing it in territory at the moment dominated by a small variety of high-end independents resembling F. P. Journe, which was based in 1999 and is now thought to show over greater than $100 million a 12 months, in line with Morgan Stanley estimates.
With backing from the Rosenfields and Voutilainen overseeing product improvement, specialists mentioned City Jürgensen would shake up the luxurious watch business, at the moment dominated by Swiss corporations.
“That is one of the best revival of a watch firm since A. Lange & Söhne in 1994,” mentioned Wei Koh, founding father of the watch media model Revolution, referring to the German model now owned by the Richemont Group.
“I hope the Swiss corporations are trying over the Atlantic and asking themselves what simply occurred,” mentioned Kristian Haagen, the Danish founding father of Timegeeks and creator of a number of books on watchmaking. “There’s one thing actually good and refreshing about it, one thing extraordinarily un-Swiss. The Rosenfields are extraordinarily rich, however in addition they know their watches.”
Latest revivals of historic dial names recommend the omens are good. In 2015, the billionaire Scheufele household that owns Chopard launched Ferdinand Berthoud, named after the 18th century watchmaker. The corporate has received plenty of prestigious business awards with its small-scale watches, together with the Aiguille d’Or on the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) in 2016, extensively seen as the very best honour in wonderful watchmaking. It was adopted the identical 12 months by Czapek & Cie, a reputation from the nineteenth century. It too has received a GPHG award and grown a shopper base with its short-batch collections of hand-finished mechanical watches.
The luxurious watch business’s present travails appeared to not concern City Jürgensen’s new house owners. Whereas many watch companies have reported declining gross sales and volumes over the previous 18 months, the ache has been on the decrease finish of the market. “On the increased worth level, it’s not that large an issue,” mentioned Voutilainen.
Rosenfield acknowledged that the business was in higher well being than it’s now when his household acquired the model in 2021. ”The [relaunch] timing was not deliberate for this second,” he mentioned. “However our view was, when the watches are prepared, we’ll introduce them. And that’s now. There’ll at all times be a marketplace for issues which might be stunning and distinctive and made to the very best commonplace. It simply must be one thing folks need.”
He added that his household’s funding in City Jürgensen was long-term. “Our hope could be to by no means promote it,” he mentioned. “We wish to go it down via generations.”
