Forbes_USA_June_13_2017

More documents

Recommendations

Info

FORBES LIFE The Second Time Around When watch collector Pascal Raffy bought the venerable Swiss brand Bovet, he reinvented the company—and himself. BY ROBERTA NAAS By the age of 36, Pascal Raffy, a French pharmaceutical executive, was enjoying early retirement, spending time with his family and keeping an eye out for new investments. Knowing Raffy was a passionate watch collector, with hundreds of vintage timepieces, an investment banker friend would often tempt him with opportunities in the watch world. Each time, Raffy would decline—until one day his friend insisted Raffy do a blind touch test with a timepiece. “My friend put it, with several of my other watches, under a cloth,” Raffy recalls. “One by one, I felt those watches, and when my hand fell on one of them, I knew it was truly different. I felt the crown at the top of the strap and realized this was a watch with its own identity. Then I looked at it, and in a nanosecond it talked to me. I took my loupe and saw that it was a beautiful piece of horology. It had substance. I was interested.” And he had the means to make a significant investment. At 25, Raffy bought into a family-run French pharmaceuticals company, where, after a merger, he became head of the firm Synthélabo. After several successful years in France, Raffy expanded Synthélabo into North Africa, where he not only began the production of drugs but also built dedicated facilities for marketing and distributing them to doctors on the continent. During the ten years Raffy led Synthélabo, he turned it into the third-largest pharmaceutical group in France. But after his young daughter lamented that he worked too much, he decided to cash out. It took 18 months to organize the sale of Synthélabo to Sanofi, but Raffy wanted to leave the company in good hands. “Whenever you start something in an area of health and caring for human beings—where there is also a moral dimension in addition to the business side—it is very difficult to stop work,” he says. The retirement was short-lived once Raffy touched that watch under the cloth. The timepiece was made by Bovet. Swiss watchmaker Edouard Bovet had founded the brand in England in 1822, when the Silk Road was flourishing and there was demand in Asia for fine handmade pocket watches. Bovet’s earliest watches were hand-painted and created in identical pairs so if one watch needed to return to Europe for repair, the owner still had a fine watch to wear. The business operated out of England, but the watches were made in Fleurier, Switzerland, where they continued to be produced until the late 1930s. By 2000, when Raffy learned that Bovet was looking for a new investor, the two men who The art of time: “You should be able to take a loupe and know it is a Bovet, no matter the price,” says Raffy, wearing one of his Amadeo watches, which easily converts to a pocket watch or table clock (at right). PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES 106 | FORBES JUNE 13, 2017
WATCHES owned the brand were operating from a small office in Geneva, buying components and assembling about 140 watches a year. “I listened to what they wanted and told them that I am not the person to do quantities,” he explains. “I am not jumping into a watchmaking house to build a huge brand. I am doing it for my own selfish pleasure, for beautiful watchmaking. My ideas were totally unaligned with the era we were living in then, but I knew I wanted to build Bovet into a true watchmaking house with a soul.” Raffy purchased the majority share of Bovet in 2001 (about a $5 million investment at the time) and developed a vertical integration strategy derived from his passion as a collector. Bovet had to be a true manufacture of unique and exclusive pieces. He vowed that he would never produce more than 4,000 watches a year. “Collectors don’t want what everybody else has,” he says. “So I decided that my product would be very expensive and be worthy of its costs. We would go back to the glory of the 19th century, with our own facilities and making every part of our watches ourselves.” Raffy estimated it would take eight to ten years to build the company to his standards. “I spent the first two years listening to all of the experts about what I should do, but in the end I decided I wanted to do it my way.” By 2003, he had bought out his partners and had begun earnestly assembling a watchmaking team. Three years later, he purchased Bovet’s supplier of watch-movement components and, within months, also took ownership of its dial supplier and bought a minority share in the company supplying its cases. That same year, the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel approached Raffy about buying a local castle. He had no interest until he learned that the estate had once belonged to the Bovet family. He purchased Château de Môtiers, adding it to the House of Bovet (which he renamed Bovet 1822), and built a state-of-the-art watchmaking facility within its ancient walls. With those major investments, which totaled about $35 million, Raffy brought the company full circle. “I waited six years to see a return on investment,” Raffy says, “because I knew I wanted the facilities in place for the brand to be seen as true manufacture.” For the past decade, Raffy, now 53, has dedicated his efforts to garnering a cult following for Bovet among collectors. True to his promise of exclusivity, he has kept watch production down. For the past two years, the brand has produced about 1,800 watches annually. Bovet’s core watches range in price from $20,000 to $65,000, and those with grand complications range from $220,000 to about $1 million. The revenue split between these categories is just about 50/50. Signature features include Bovet’s iconic “bow” atop the crown, unusually placed at the 12 o’clock position (the feature that first attracted Raffy to the brand) and the patented Amadeo case, which converts the wristwatch into a table clock or pocket watch in a matter of seconds. Every Bovet timepiece is handcrafted to the same exacting standards, whether the watch costs $30,000 or a half-million. “You should be able to take a loupe and know it is Bovet, no matter the price,” Raffy says. “Otherwise it is like treating two children differently. I accept that this means I will have varying profit margins.” Today, Raffy claims Bovet has net profits of more than 15%—with profits as high as 25% in some years, roughly $20 million annually. “I have investments that are big businesses with mass production. But this is not for Bovet,” Raffy says. “Bovet is a jewel, and it will remain a jewel.” FINAL THOUGHT “A loafer always has the correct time.” —KIN HUBBARD SPECIAL PROPERTIES/CHRISTIE’S INTERNATIONAL REAL ESTATE BUY THIS CASTLE AMERICAN VERSAILLES Built in 1907, this 50,000-square-foot mansion in Mahwah, New Jersey, may be known as “the American Versailles,” but it was in fact modeled on an English castle. With 58 rooms (including his-and-hers master bedroom wings), a wine cellar, a billiard room, a spa and a home theater, the estate sits on more than 12 acres within 25 miles of New York City. Now, after seven years of restoration, the Gilded Age mansion, formally known as Darlington, is back on the market with an asking price of $48 million—which is a bargain compared to the actual Versailles. JUNE 13, 2017 FORBES | 107
Page 2 and 3:
DISCOVER THE #WinstonGarden
Page 4:
Contents // JUNE 13, 2017 VOLUME 19
Page 7 and 8:
Here’s to breaking more glass cei
Page 9 and 10:
UNICEF does not endorse any brand o
Page 11 and 12:
Suchi Mehta, Sheraton Associate sin
Page 13 and 14:
FACT & COMMENT “With all thy gett
Page 15:
Slack is where work happens, for mi
Page 18 and 19:
LeaderBoard ABOUT-FACE The rear of
Page 20 and 21:
LeaderBoard ENTERTAINMENT Hello, Do
Page 22:
LeaderBoard ON THE BLOCK Time Machi
Page 25 and 26:
Learn why enterprises worldwide tru
Page 27 and 28:
REL ABLE You rely on your employees
Page 29 and 30:
O-mobile: Jerry Seinfeld got coffee
Page 31 and 32:
THE ETERNAL MOVEMENT Ulysse Nardin,
Page 34 and 35:
LeaderBoard CONVERSATION THE INTERE
Page 36 and 37:
Where Creativity Connects. Spring i
Page 38 and 39:
STRATEGIES 36 | FORBES MONTH 00, 20
Page 40 and 41:
STRATEGIES most successful technolo
Page 42 and 43:
STRATEGIES Farquhar and Cannon-Broo
Page 44 and 45:
STRATEGIES Mohammed bin Salman, 31
Page 46 and 47:
STRATEGIES How the West Was Won Des
Page 48:
TECHNOLOGY FAST TECH 25 Big Pharma
Page 51 and 52:
CEO, JON ORINGER SHUTTERSTOCK Shutt
Page 54 and 55:
3 0 3 0 U N D E R OFFICE MATES ORGA
Page 56 and 57:
ENTREPRENEURS Google Slayer Startin
Page 58 and 59: ENTREPRENEURS HUMAN RESOURCES HOW T
Page 60 and 61: ENTREPRENEURS SMALL GIANTS Lightbul
Page 62: ENTREPRENEURS Vidal later joined Ta
Page 65 and 66: your co-conspirator might give you
Page 68 and 69: INVESTING FUNDS Build the Wall! Por
Page 70 and 71: Passion fuels potential. Inspiratio
Page 72 and 73: America’s Richest Self-Made Women
Page 76 and 77: Sponsored Inspiring Greatness: ADVA
Page 96 and 97: THE LOOMING RETAIL BAILOUT Think Am
Page 98 and 99: FORBES RETAIL BAILOUT CHEAP LABOR H
Page 100 and 101: FORBES RETAIL BAILOUT 10 5 0% % 10
Page 102 and 103: THE BIG CHEESE FROM PIZZA HUT AND D
Page 104 and 105: THE CHEESE KING An avalanche of che
Page 106 and 107: THE CHEESE KING Just as his timing
Page 110 and 111: THOUGHTS ON Pioneers “I don’t r
Page 112 and 113: LET’S LACE UP OUR SHOES. LET’S
Page 114 and 115: HOW ONE WOMAN LAUNCHED A PUBLIC HEA
Page 116: THE ZIP SHOULDER TOTE DETROIT • W
show all

Forbes_USA_June_13_2017

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?