PARIS — The Swatch Group has secured a high-profile flagship on Switzerland’s most prestigious shopping thoroughfare, Zurich’s Banhofstrasse.
The world’s biggest watchmaker, based in Biel, Switzerland, said it had purchased the property at number 30 from Credit Suisse for an undisclosed sum. The six-story neo-Gothic building, with a floor area of 80,000 square feet, currently houses department store Grieder and a Louis Vuitton store.
“With the purchase by the Swatch Group, this central building that characterizes the Bahnhofstrasse like no other building remains therefore in Swiss hands,” Swatch Group said. It declined to provide additional details on what it plans to do with the property.
Marc-Christian Riebe, founder and chief executive officer of Zurich-based retail real estate agency Location Group, estimated the sale at 450 million Swiss francs, or $467 million at current exchange.
Related Articles
He said Swatch Group could buy out the current tenants, whose leases run for another 10 years, but it would come at a cost. Swatch Group’s cash cow brand, Omega, has a store at 48 Banhofstrasse which opened in late 2013, but the group does not have a presence in the city for other brands, such as Harry Winston.
You May Also Like
“They have so many brands that are not in Zurich,” said Riebe. “They could bring together all their brands here. If they bring in Chinese tourists, like Bucherer is already doing at its flagship in Lucerne, then this would be the new temple of Swiss watches.”
Bucherer, a family-owned Swiss retailer that opened a watch megastore in Paris last year, has strong relationships with tour operators. It draws more than 12,000 buses carrying Chinese tourists to its store on Lucerne’s historic Schwanenplatz every year, according to Riebe’s estimates.