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Dès le début des années 2000, nombre de sous-traitants actifs dans les cadrans, les aiguilles, les boîtes et les composants des mouvements horlogers ont ainsi changé de main, venant grossir les rangs des entreprises déjà bien établies mais également ceux des Maisons en quête de capacités industrielles dignes de ce nom, celles qui tendent vers le saint Graal que représente le mouvement de manufacture.
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And so watchmakers started casting an eye towards their suppliers, intent on honing their industrial resources as part of sweeping vertical integration. While these buy-outs of small and medium firms may not have made headline news in the same way the take-over of Jaeger-LeCoultre, Breguet or Zenith once did, they still caused a subtle but nonetheless important shift in the watchmaking landscape. Since the early 2000s, numerous suppliers of dials, hands, cases and movement parts have changed owners, swelling the ranks of already well-established firms as well as others eager to develop industrial resources worthy of the name, the ones that strive towards that holy of holies, the Manufacture movement. Clearly we haven’t seen the last of these take-overs of highly-specialised small and medium enterprises, as illustrated these past six months by the acquisition of Elinor, a manufacturer of precious metal cases, by F.P. Journe, of Donzé-Baume, a specialist in cases and bracelets, by Richemont, of Indexor, a manufacturer of hour markers, by Swatch via MOM Le Prélet, and the alliance between Bulgari and Leschot, another case-maker. Still, companies realised quite some time ago that vertical integration alone was no longer sufficient…
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