Business News: Chanel Acquires Stake in Tudor’s Movement Venture
Continuing its vertical integration in watch manufacturing, Chanel has just announced its 20% stake in Kenissi, a recently formed watch movement and component manufacturer, which it acquired for SFr20m in March 2018 according to Reuters, around the same time Chanel took a stake in F.P. Journe. Chanel’s announcement also stated that the first wristwatch equipped with an automatic Kenissi movement will be launched at Baselworld 2019 in March.
More intriguing are Chanel’s partners in the project. Swiss newspaper Le Temps writes that Kenissi is the “industrial arm of Tudor”. Though Kenissi is now based in Geneva, it will move to a new facility in Le Locle in 2021, where a factory about 150m long – nicknamed “Project Gemini” – is now under construction. Half the building will be for Kenissi, and the other half for Tudor, according to Le Temps.watchesbysjx
