Chanel buys stake in Swiss watch movement manufacturer Kenissi

On Monday, Chanel announced it has bought a stake in Swiss watch movement manufacturer Kenissi, only a few months after doing the same with Geneva watch brand F.P. Journe.

The luxury group did not specify the value of the stake it bought in Kenissi, nor how much the investment was worth, and underlined in a press release that the operation allows it “to continue to strengthen its position as a player on the prestige watches market.”

Chanel emphasised the continuity with “the approach first introduced in 1993 with the acquisition of [watch] manufacturer G&F Châtelain in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, as [Chanel] wants to endow its creations with cases and movements of the highest quality.”

Kenissi is a “new Swiss producer of automatic movements, and offers a range of extremely durable high-performance watch calibres. It is currently based in Geneva, and will move to a new facility in Locle in 2021,” wrote Chanel in the press release.

The luxury group also announced that, at next March’s Baselworld international watch industry show in Basel, it will present “a new creation equipped with an automatic movement produced by Kenissi.”

Last September, Chanel announced it bought a “minority” shareholding in watch manufacturer F.P. Journe, a high-end Geneva brand whose output is limited to only 900 watches per year.

In 2017, Chanel, which is owned by the Wertheimer brothers, generated a revenue of $9.6 billion (€8.39 billion) with its Chanel Limited holding company.