Nick Hayek is standing firm: the CEO of Swatch Group has no plans to take the Swiss watchmaker private. While the Hayek family owns nearly half of the company, delisting is not on the table. “Going private is not possible,” he said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek – AFP
Such a move, Hayek explained, would require the family to take on significant debt. “And my father hated debt like the plague,” he said. Still, he believes delisting would be advantageous for the company.
“Because then no stock market player, no financial analyst and no financial journalist would be interested in us,” he said. “Swatch wouldn’t have to go through all this communication and bureaucracy. Do you know what cost savings that would bring!”
On the topic of U.S. tariffs, Hayek struck the same confident tone he used during a surprise analyst call last Wednesday. “The U.S. is still booming,” he said.
“We’re seeing growth of 20 to 30 per cent in some cases—despite the price increases of around five per cent that we introduced in April, due to tariffs and the strong Swiss franc.”
Hayek also defended the company’s commitment to serving all market segments and maintaining in-house production across its approximately 150 factories in Switzerland. This strategy, he said, gives Swatch greater flexibility than its competitors.
“Yes, we have higher costs,” Hayek acknowledged. “Because we hold on to our workers. But we’re back on the market much faster when demand picks up.” He added that this model also fosters internal innovation: “All the production know-how means more in-house innovation.”
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