Hayek is also a real estate mogul: the Swatch mogul accumulates real estate; pays everything in cash

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Nick Hayek’s (69) watch company runs like clockwork. Swatch Group increased its sales and profits significantly last year. Shareholders can look forward to higher dividends. But what many people don’t know is that Hayek became a real estate mogul in the shadow of the watch industry.

The Swatch Group sits on commercial and production properties with a market value of 4 billion francs. Hayek made several deals last year and bought new sales space for a total of 360 million francs.

Real estate paid in cash

The Swatch boss’s watch company isn’t even relying on a bank loan for its shopping spree. The group pays cash for property purchases. “Independence has always been the Swatch Group’s philosophy, including being against banks,” the media office said when asked. This also applies to the real estate sector. The resources required for this are abundantly available. Swatch Group has billions of dollars in reserves.

And it’s investing some of that into its retail business. Swatch Group makes almost 45 percent of its sales in its own stores. “We have a global retail network and are constantly expanding it,” says the Swatch Group, adding: “Our own retail stores allow for direct customer contact and instant customer feedback!” The focus is, unsurprisingly, on countries where demand is high. In 2023, Swatch Group visited the most important places in London and bought one building for 90 million francs and another for 120 million francs.

Swatch Group took advantage of the positive conditions in the real estate market. Hayek’s watch empire always comes into play at the right moment. He purchased the existing real estate park, which had a market value of 4 billion francs, for approximately $3 billion. Upon request, the company leaves open how much of this is invested in Swiss concrete gold. In 2014, Hayek and his group purchased the prestigious Grieder House on Zurich Bahnhofstrasse. Purchase price: 400 million francs.

Additionally, there are thousands of flats in the portfolio.

Its real estate portfolio also includes apartments. Swatch Group Immobilien AG manages more than 5,000 rental and rental properties in Switzerland on behalf of its own pension fund. “Mostly cheap apartments in areas where our production centers are located,” the media office said. Here too, the market value is likely to be well over one billion francs.

“Our core business is the production and distribution of watches,” the media office emphasizes. The cash register is ringing, as evidenced by the 5.2 percent sales increase. The company remains silent on sales figures for its marketing coups Moonswatch, Moonshine and Scuba Fifty Fathoms. That’s just it: the Swatch version of Fifty Fathoms is also boosting business for Blancpain, the house brand that produced the original. According to the group, since its launch last fall, Blancpain has “managed to increase sales of its original Fifty Fathoms models and the number of visitors to its own boutiques by over 25 percent.”

The only downside: The strong franc has a significant negative impact. If there were fixed exchange rates, sales would increase by 12.6 percent.

Source :Blick