Georges-Henri Meylan em 2005, quando era responsável pela Audemars Piguet (arquivo Fernando Correia de Oliveira)
Está a gerar muita controvérsia a decisão do Banco Central Suíço de deixar o franco flutuar livremente, numa altura em que o euro se deprecia de forma rápida e assustadora. Face a pressões cambiais semelhantes, o Banco Central Suíço decidiu, há uns anos, fixar em 1,20 a paridade com o euro. Agora, ao deixar que a sua moeda flutue livremente, ameaça com isso a competitividade das indústrias helvéticas (as exportações viram subitamente agravados em 20 por cento os seus preços). Muito particularmente, a indústria relojoeira está alarmada.
Georges-Henri Meylan é um histórico do sector. Durante cerca de 20 anos esteve à frente da Audemars Piguet. Reformou-se, em 2008, e passou a dedicar mais tempo à holding familair MELB (acrónimo dos seus três filhos Meylan Edouard Léonore Bertrand), que detém a maioria do capital de duas marcas - Hautlence e H. Moser & Cie. A MELB é dirigida por William Muirhead, antigo director financeiro da Audemars Piguet e, além da relojoaria, tem participações no imobiliário e na tecnologia farmacêutica.
Desde a saída de Meylan da Audemars Piguet que a manuifactura anda um pouco à deriva. Isto é a nossa opinião, claro.
Vem à liça Georges-Henri Meylan, uma personalidade que muito admiramos, quando o seu filho, Edouard, CEO da H. Moser & Cie. nos dá conta da carta aberta que acaba de dirigir ao Presidente do Banco Central Suíço, protestando contra a flutuação livre (e súbita valorização) do franco.
Edouard Meylan
Eis a carta:
AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. THOMAS JORDAN, PRESIDENT OF THE SWISS NATIONAL BANK, ON BEHALF OF ENTREPRENEURS FROM H. MOSER WATCHES.
Neuhausen am Rheinfall, January 15th, 2015
Dear Mr. President,
I wanted to personally and publicly thank you, regarding your dramatic move releasing the minimum Swiss Franc exchange rate of 1.20 to the Euro.
When I woke up that morning I had a strange feeling. As I checked the news, I wondered, “What am I going to do today?” aside from our usual business in January. There was no new conflict, no big news about emerging markets slowing down, and thank goodness, no new terror attack.
I am an entrepreneur, and I own a small watch manufacture called H. Moser & Cie, based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Very Rare is our tagline at H. Moser & Cie. Very Rare, because we produce 1,000 watches, we are entrepreneurs in an independent, family-owned business that employs 55 people, and because we are a manufacture in the true sense of the word, developing and producing our own ingenious watches.
As an entrepreneur in a small Swiss company, I like a challenge; whether it’s the pressure from the big luxury groups in supply or distribution. Or, a fight to do more with small budgets against the avalanche of big advertising and marketing. Well, today, Mr. President, your dramatic move helped step it up a notch: over 95% of our watches are sold to people outside of Switzerland, and the first retailers called the same day to cancel orders.
So this morning at 10:38 when my CFO sent me an email titled “Breaking News”, I thought “aha, finally something to do”. Something that forces me to find smart solutions to continue our growth and improving profitability and to ensure continuity for H. Moser & Cie. and the jobs for 55 people working for me.
In fact, one thought crossed my mind: why not just move 2 kilometres into Germany and continue business as usual in the EU? I’ll even beat that other restriction on permits for workers from the EU that came up in February 2014 – around 20% of my employees are German.
Let me make my appeal clear to you, on behalf of the many small and mid-size businesses that employ so many Swiss people: I trust you have a strong plan that will help all of us make it through with you over the long term. Because otherwise, along with many other wonderful Swiss creations, H. Moser watches may just have become very, very, very rare.
Sincerely,
Edouard Meylan
CEO of H. Moser & Cie.
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