Welcome to the Business of Watches, the Haudincki podcast that explores the intersection of commerce and timekeeping.

I'm your host, senior business editor at Haudinky, Andy Hoffman.

This week, we sit down with Laurent LeComp, managing director of timepieces at Montblanc and Minerva.

It's an interesting and challenging moment for Montblanc and Minerva.

It won't be participating at Watches and Wonders this year.

That's a big change for the Richemont-owned brand.

We talked to LeComp in September before this was revealed, but it was

becoming clear that Montblanc the watch brand, aligned with the famous Germany-based writing

instrument maker, was doing things differently. We were at the Minerva manufacturer in Villaray

to get a close-up look at the facilities of the story brand that serves as the jewel

in the Mont Blanc watchmaking crown. Lecombe lays out the product in business philosophy behind

Minerva and its current state and how the business runs. We also talk about his habit of extreme long distance running in extreme conditions.

He's a unique executive in the watch world. But first, we're going to start things a little

differently this week. Mark Kozlerich, the senior editor at Haudinkie in New York, and I are

going to talk about some of the latest headlines in the watch world.

Mark, good morning to you. Welcome. How are you? Good morning. Thanks for having me. I'm doing great.

Excellent. Excellent. So it is a Monday morning there for you in New York. It's Monday afternoon here in Geneva.

Now, we had some interesting reporting to start off the year from a publication here in Switzerland called Business Montre, which is headed and run by a gentleman by the name of Gregory Ponce

here in Switzerland. And he reported that Antoine Pins, the CEO of Tag Hoyer, looks like we'll be

stepping down or leaving that post. Now, I reached out to both Tag Hoyer and Mr. Pond for

comment and reaction. There's been no comment from Tag Hoyer, and I haven't heard back from

Antoine. But I've done a bit of reporting, and indeed, it seems like there are some changes likely to happen at Tag Hoyer.

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