Moser prepares for the future
Establishment of the MOSER GROUP AG holding company
Three young and successful Schaffhausen businesses join forces in a newly established watch group
The H. Moser & Cie watch brand and its associate companies, Precision Engineering AG and MSG AG Manufacturing Support Group, were brought together in a newly established holding company at the turn of the year 2007/2008. The founding and principal shareholders of the three companies have embarked on this step jointly in order to maintain their continued independence and to safeguard their future growth strategy.
The remarkable success of the H. Moser & Cie watch brand following its relaunch in 2005 and the equally successful demand for the products of Precision Engineering AG, which specializes in the manufacture of all the escapement components, made the pooling of their capacities an obvious next step. One of the main arguments was the need for independence and for safeguarding the supply of all strategically important parts. The multi-million financial participation was raised exclusively from the existing shareholders.
There are now three areas run as centres of excellence within Moser Group AG.
Moser Schaffhausen AG is the lead company with the successfully and internationally established premium watch brand of H. Moser & Cie. The brand has been in existence since 1828 and celebrates its 180th anniversary this year. A successful collection of very elegant, timelessly beautiful watches with incomparably complex internal workings was launched in 2005 to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the company, Heinrich Moser from Schaffhausen. The highly authentic nature of the brand deriving from its readily verifiable history, historic collectors’ pieces of the highest quality, the best watchmaking technology in exclusive movements of the new era and, not least, the expertise of all those involved, create a brand potential with enormous promise.
Precision Engineering AG concerns itself, among other things, with the development, manufacture and marketing of all the components required for an escapement assembly. Established in 2001, the company took over the activities in the watchmaking segment of the Straumann Institute in Waldenburg, which specialized in dental implants. After a period of development of around three years, Precision Engineering AG was already one of the top five companies in the world with the necessary in-house expertise to smelt Nivarox, a self-compensating material, which is achieving unparalleled successes in present-day watchmaking technology. The balance springs from Precision Engineering AG are based on the classic formula and the process technology of Reinhard Straumann. In tribute to the inventor, the trade marks Straumann Spirale®, Spiral Straumann® and Straumann Hairspring® have been internationally registered. The product range also includes pallet forks and escape wheels made of solid gold, steel or other materials, along with true screw balances and their weight compensation screws.
MSG AG Manufacturing Support Group is the junior company of the Group. It was established in order to keep the strategically important manufacturing technologies and machinery in-house. Here there are ultra-modern erosion machines, 5-axis milling machines working to an accuracy of a thousandth of a millimetre, CNC machining centres, burnishing and hob milling machines, as well as one of the most accurate rolling machines in the world with a rolling tolerance of 0.1 thousandth of a millimetre for manufacturing the balance springs, and a high-vacuum furnace; these are the superlatives of accuracy, precision-finishing and material technology, without which today’s premium-class wristwatch can no longer survive. Large series are not machined here, however. The principal purpose of MSG AG is to be able to produce prototypes and preproduction models more rapidly and more accurately. It now also manufactures a large proportion of the escapement components that are supplied by Precision Engineering AG to the entire watchmaking industry.
On no account is the philosophy of working with the best suppliers for series production, adopted by Heinrich Moser in 1828, departed from in all these activities. For only those who have been involved in the manufacture of parts for watches of the highest class for several generations know precisely what is demanded in order to meet the refinements and special features of the individual parts. Moser Group AG together with all its suppliers will accordingly endeavour to balance out capacity bottlenecks, try out new ideas, put technologies to the test and achieve common interests.
