The picture of the horse trading that concluded with Watches of Switzerland Group owning Hodinkee is becoming slightly clearer.
WoSG was already on the record in an interview with the New York Times that it acquired the media and retail operation without debt, which raised eyebrows among trade executives given the assumed burn rate of Hodinkee Shop and Crown & Caliber.
Nobody has disclosed whether any creative accountancy was deployed to erase debt that may have been on the Hodinkee balance sheet, or if creditors took a bath.
But we do know Hodinkee sold the Crown & Caliber brand and intellectual property: its website, social media feeds and trading data to Boston-based European Watch Company in a deal said to have been worth six figures.
And, today, WatchPro can reveal that its inventory, including remaining new watches in stock for Hodinkee Shop and pre-owned watches in the Crown & Caliber vault were bought by Boneta Inc., a New York-based wholesaler to the secondary market.
The remaining inventory was bought for “low seven figures,” the company’s owner Erik Boneta shared, refusing to be more specific.
Hodinkee’s retail operation is completely shuttered (you get an error message if you go to its website), but the media operation is running as its millions of fans would hope: reporting with authority and flair on the latest releases from the watch world.
