A most lucrative takeover. A little over a month ago, the Besançon watchmaker and jeweler Maty bought Cresus, a Lyon company specializing in the purchase and sale of second-hand luxury watches since 1993. Since April 2024, Cresus had been in receivership and waiting for a buyer. The problem was solved thanks to Maty, who has, in fact, taken over the watchmaking workshop, the online sales site, two of the five boutiques and 15 of the 30 employees, as listed in the economic newspaper Les Échos.
And the least we can say is that this acquisition is far from having been thoughtless. Indeed, with this acquisition, Maty is once again hitting the second-hand market, which today represents 5 to 10% of its turnover, estimated at just over 100 million euros according to our colleagues. It is also part of the “upmarket strategy” of the company founded in Besançon in 1951. Maty was created by Gérard Mantion, then aged 24, a great art enthusiast, who had launched the distance selling of watches during the Algerian War, by offering soldiers’ wives the chance to send a watch to their men who had gone to the front.
It should be noted that in 2021, a commercial partnership had already been concluded between Maty and Cresus. “The two brands coexist well and it is quite coherent”, assures André Ségura, the CEO of the Besançon brand. The latter also has the ambition to open five corners in some of its 40 stores. In the running: that of (…)
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