Bucherer goes to Rolex with Freshfields, Mühlebach and Niederer Kraft

Luxury watchmaker Rolex has bought the Swiss watch and jewellery retailer Bucherer. Jörg Bucherer was the third generation to run the Bucherer family business. In the absence of direct descendants, he decided to sell the company.

With this billion-dollar deal, Rolex is thus taking over more than one hundred shops worldwide from the previous owner (including: 17 shops in Switzerland, 10 in Germany, 6 boutiques in London, several shops in Paris, Copenhagen and Vienna, and 32 shops in the American market under the Tourneau brand).

According to a press release published by Rolex, the Bucherer brand will be preserved. Speaking of the purchase price, the newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende wrote that it’s been “quite higher” than Bucherer’s estimated annual turnover of around 2 billion Swiss francs.

Advisors

Rolex was advised by the law firms Lalive (based Geneva), with Alexander Troller (Corporate/Conflict Resolution) and the firm Borer (based Zurich) with Jürg Borer (Antitrust).

Bucherer was advised by the in-house legal teams (with the Group General Counsel Stephan Ulrich) and by the firms: Mühlebach (based in Lucerne), with Dr. Urs Mühlebach (corporate) and Sören Schwieterka (contract law), Niederer Kraft Frey (based Zurich) with Dr. Patrik Peyer (Corporate/M&A), and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Frankfurt) with Rick van Aerssen (pictured) and Dr. Nicholas Günther (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Peter Niggemann (Antitrust) and the associate Dr. Maxim Gomer (M&A).

KPMG (based in Zug) also advised Bucherer with Markus Vogel, Sandra Bütler, Simon Juon, Christoph Frey (all tax). The Big Four firm also acted as financial M&A advisor with a team led by Timo Knak, Head of Deal Advisory at KPMG Switzerland.