Richemont completes sale of Baume & Mercier to Italy's Damiani Group

Richemont has completed the sale of watch maison Baume & Mercier to Damiani Group, the two companies said, with the deal taking effect on 1 July 2026 — about five months after the Swiss luxury group first agreed the sale in January.

Damiani, the Italian jeweller that has spent the past two decades building its own watchmaking business alongside its jewellery house, said it intends to grow Baume & Mercier by drawing on its existing multi-brand distribution network and by opening "selective" single-brand boutiques in key markets, building on the maison's existing presence in Italy. Richemont will continue to provide operational support during a transition period, the companies said; neither side disclosed financial terms.

"We are confident to have found in Damiani Group the right home for Baume & Mercier to thrive in years to come," Richemont chief executive Nicolas Bos said in the companies' statement. Damiani executive president Guido Damiani said the group was "delighted and excited to welcome Maison Baume & Mercier" into its portfolio.

The sale lets Richemont narrow its watch and jewellery portfolio toward its higher-margin, higher-priced houses — Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, the group's specialist watchmakers — after divesting a maison that had long sat toward the more accessible end of its stable. For Damiani, the deal reads the other way: an established Swiss watch name it can fold straight into a distribution network it already runs, rather than a young brand it would need to build awareness for from nothing. The companies' statement does not address how far Damiani intends to push Baume & Mercier's own-boutique network beyond Italy, including into Japan — that expansion, if it comes, is the next thing worth watching.