Movado Group is selling the Swiss watchmaker founded in 1911 to a group led by François-Paul Journe's Geneva manufacture, with Chanel as a partner and Pierre Jacques as chief executive.
Ebel was founded in 1911 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, one of the watchmaking towns of the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, and its name joins the initials of its founders, Eugène Blum and Alice Lévy. The brand had its strongest years in the 1970s and 1980s under Pierre-Alain Blum, and in 1977 it introduced the Sport Classic, known for its wave-shaped bracelet and still one of the best-known collections in its catalogue. Three owners followed: Investcorp in 1994, LVMH in 1999 and Movado Group, which bought it in 2004.
On October 8, Movado Group announced a binding agreement to sell 95% of Ebel for $66.5 million to a group led by Montres Journe, the Geneva company behind F.P. Journe watches. The group also includes Chanel and Pierre Jacques, the former chief executive of De Bethune, who will run Ebel. Movado will keep the remaining 5%, and the deal is expected to close in the coming months. The American company focuses on accessible luxury, fashion watches and jewelry, and its chairman and chief executive, Efraim Grinberg, said the sale will let it concentrate fully on those priorities.
What the sale covers
According to Movado's release, the deal covers the trademarks, intellectual property, inventory and other assets used mainly in Ebel's business. Among them is the Villa Turque, the house Le Corbusier completed in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1917 for the watchmaker Anatole Schwob, which Ebel bought in 1986, the year of its 75th anniversary. Those assets will move to a Swiss subsidiary of Movado created for the transaction, together with the staff who work for the brand, and at closing the buyer group will receive 95% of that subsidiary. The parties have not disclosed how much each partner contributes.
When Movado announced it was buying Ebel from LVMH in December 2003, it agreed to pay about $47.3 million. At the time the brand expected sales of around $65 million for the year, with watches priced between $1,500 and $10,000 in roughly 1,800 points of sale. Movado has not published Ebel's current sales.
The new owners
F.P. Journe is the independent manufacture that watchmaker François-Paul Journe founded in Geneva in 1999, and it makes its watches and their components in its own workshops. Chanel bought 20% of the company in 2018. Pierre Jacques led De Bethune until the summer of 2025, when he stepped down from his executive role and became the brand's honorary president.
In the release, Frédéric Grangié, president of Chanel Watches and Fine Jewelry, calls Ebel "one of the great names of Swiss watchmaking." François-Paul Journe sums up his approach with a line he credits to Michelangelo: "the product, the product, the product."
Ebel in Mexico and Spain
Ebel's store locator lists the department store chain Liverpool as its retailer in Mexico, and jewelers in Madrid, Barcelona, Girona and Palma de Mallorca in Spain. Searches in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Lima return no points of sale. The brand's online store ships to Spain, with prices in euros, and to the United States, but its list of destinations does not currently include Mexico or any other Latin American country. For watches already sold, the release provides for Movado to supply services to Ebel during the transition to maintain continuity for customers and business partners; owners in the region can ask their retailer or the brand how warranty and service will be handled while the handover is completed.
A house with an industrial past
From the 1970s, Ebel made watches for Cartier under licence, and in 1982 it fitted the Sport Classic chronograph with Zenith's El Primero calibre, which by then had been out of production for years. The buyers come from independent watchmaking, where F.P. Journe designs and builds its own movements. None of them has yet announced product plans for Ebel, and Journe's line about the product is the clearest signal they have given of their priorities. The Villa Turque goes with the brand as well. Ebel bought the house forty years ago to mark its anniversary, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the town where the company was founded 115 years ago.
