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Business of Fashion
4 days ago
- Business
- Business of Fashion
How to Revive a Sleeping Beauty Watch Brand
The dormant Danish watch company Urban Jürgensen was 'resurrected' in Los Angeles on Thursday following a $25 million revamp that its US backers hope will land it a seat at luxury watchmaking's top table inside five years. Acquired by a group of investors led by the American Rosenfield family in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, Urban Jürgensen was originally founded in Copenhagen in 1773 and is revered by watch connoisseurs and collectors. But outside that bubble, the name is largely unknown. According to its co-chief executive Alex Rosenfield, the bubble needs to burst. 'We think that what we're making are watches that people who love and care about watches will love and care about, but the world of people who can enjoy what we're doing is much larger than that,' Rosenfield told the Business of Fashion. 'Too often, watch companies make you feel like if you don't understand the escapement, we don't want to talk to you. Our goal is absolutely the opposite. It has to be beyond the obsessives.' Rosenfield is new to the watch industry. Qualified as a lawyer, he held a number of brand strategy roles in media and fashion before joining Guggenheim Partners, the US investment and financial services firm, which says it has more than $345 billion of assets under management. Rosenfield's father Andy is the firm's president and also an avid watch collector, buying his first Urban Jürgensen watch in the 1990s. Rosenfield Sr, who will continue to advise the company, and his philanthropist wife Betty hosted the relaunch at their $33 million Brentwood mansion. Rosenfield, who is based in Los Angeles, said his family had never intended to buy a watch company but stepped in to acquire Urban Jürgensen after hearing it had fallen on hard times, so they could return it to 'people who will love it and push it forward.' Urban Jürgensen's latest campaign. (Casey Zhang) The Rosenfields, who are reported to own 85 percent of the company, have assembled an impressive cast list. The company's other co-chief executive is Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish watchmaker considered one of the finest talents of his generation. Voutilainen has a minority stake in Urban Jürgensen, as well as his own independent watch company, which makes around 60 pieces a year. Urban Jürgensen's brand identity was developed by Winkreative in London and Chandelier Creative in New York under Rosenfield's direction, with a launch campaign called Time Well Spent shot by Ellen von Unwerth, the award-winning fashion photographer and filmmaker. The company is set to follow the high-value, low-volume model set by many of today's most successful independent watch brands. According to Rosenfield, in its first year, Urban Jürgensen will produce around 70 watches. Three models were introduced at Thursday's launch, with prices ranging from around $115,000 for the UJ-2 to $410,000 for the UJ-1, which will be limited to 75 pieces. Each has a new mechanical movement designed in-house by Voutilainen and hand-finished and assembled at the company's Swiss facility in the city of Biel/Bienne, where watchmaking giant Omega is based. Currently, it employs 20 people, around half of them watchmakers. 'The idea is to bring the glory of the Urban Jürgensen of the 19th century back,' Voutilainen said, referring to a period when the company made watches for the Danish royal court. 'This is just the starting block. Our aim is to make Urban Jürgensen a new reference point in fine watchmaking.' The revival of Urban Jürgensen comes in a busy season of watch brand rebirths. The private equity-backed Swiss company Breitling has in recent years acquired Universal Genève and Gallet, two dormant brands now slated for a comeback next year. Last year, Silvercity Brands, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate KDDL, revived the 18th century company Favre-Leuba, while the US founding partner of the mergers and acquisitions firm Duffy & Sweeney, Michael Sweeney, reintroduced the American watch brand Benrus in April. Rosenfield said he believed the recent glut of acquisitions and relaunches of forgotten dial names was sign that luxury buyers want a human connection to their purchases. 'We're so estranged from work with our hands and hand-making and things that are human, and now I think we need this [these brands] more than we ever did,' he said. Initially, Urban Jürgensen watches will be sold direct to consumer. No pre-orders had been taken, according to Rosenfield, who said that in time his strategy allowed for a few 'pop-ups and offices that serve as showrooms' that would be 'places to entertain as much as to sell', a model that has proved successful for Audemars Piguet, which has more than doubled its revenues over the past decade through its network of laid-back AP House concepts. Voutilainen said the ambition was to grow to between 1,000 and 1,200 watches a year in five years, putting it in territory currently dominated by a small number of high-end independents such as F. P. Journe, which was founded in 1999 and is now thought to turn over more than $100 million a year, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. With backing from the Rosenfields and Voutilainen overseeing product development, experts said Urban Jürgensen would shake up the luxury watch industry, currently dominated by Swiss companies. 'This is the best revival of a watch company since A. Lange & Söhne in 1994,' said Wei Koh, founder of the watch media brand Revolution, referring to the German brand now owned by the Richemont Group. 'I hope the Swiss companies are looking over the Atlantic and asking themselves what just happened,' said Kristian Haagen, the Danish founder of Timegeeks and author of multiple books on watchmaking. 'There's something really good and refreshing about it, something extremely un-Swiss. The Rosenfields are extremely wealthy, but they also know their watches.' Co-founders Andy & Alex Rosenfield. (Madison McGaw/ Recent revivals of historic dial names suggest the omens are good. In 2015, the billionaire Scheufele family that owns Chopard introduced Ferdinand Berthoud, named after the 18th century watchmaker. The company has won a number of prestigious industry awards with its small-scale watches, including the Aiguille d'Or at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) in 2016, widely viewed as the highest honour in fine watchmaking. It was followed the same year by Czapek & Cie, a name from the 19th century. It too has won a GPHG award and grown a client base with its short-batch collections of hand-finished mechanical watches. The luxury watch industry's current travails appeared not to concern Urban Jürgensen's new owners. While many watch businesses have reported declining sales and volumes over the past 18 months, the pain has been at the lower end of the market. 'At the higher price point, it's not that big a problem,' said Voutilainen. Rosenfield acknowledged that the industry was in better health than it is now when his family acquired the brand in 2021. 'The [relaunch] timing was not planned for this moment,' he said. 'But our view was, when the watches are ready, we'll introduce them. And that is now. There will always be a market for things that are beautiful and unique and made to the highest standard. It just has to be something people want.' He added that his family's investment in Urban Jürgensen was long-term. 'Our hope would be to never sell it,' he said. 'We want to pass it down through generations.'
CBS News
09-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
California officials seem receptive to State Farm Insurance's emergency rate hike request at Oakland hearing
At an Oakland hearing Tuesday, attorneys for State Farm Insurance made their case for an emergency rate hike that could impact insurance rates for millions of Californians. State Farm -- the state's largest insurer -- is asking California's Department of Insurance for a 17% emergency rate hike. But first, they will have to convince a judge. The company has already put in other rate requests over the past year, but this emergency request comes as a direct response to the deadly Los Angeles County wildfires in January which destroyed more than 18 buildings -- most of them homes. State Farm estimates it will have to pay out roughly $7.6 billion to fire survivors. The company says those payouts will deplete its reserves. A consumer watchdog argues policy holders shouldn't be on the hook. While there wasn't a lot of drama on the first day of the hearing, it is part of a process that will likely dramatically increase the amount it costs to buy homeowners insurance in California With catastrophic wildfires becoming commonplace in California, the home insurance market is in crisis. State Farm says it's been slowly losing money for the last ten years. On Tuesday in Oakland, its lawyers sat before Administrative Law Judge Karl Seligman to argue that an interim rate hike is justified to keep the company solvent. "State Farm General's surplus, which is the money that's available to pay claims, has fallen from about $4 billion in 2015 to about $1 billion in 2024," said State Farm counsel Katherine Wellington. "Following the fires in Los Angeles, State Farm General has estimated that its surplus will decline to about $600 million." They said that's not nearly enough to pay claims if another disaster should strike. There are even warnings that the company's policies soon may not be acceptable to some lenders for people seeking mortgage loans. The company is asking Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara for the emergency rate hike that would be imposed on all State Farm policy holders statewide to refill its cash reserve. At the hearing, state officials seemed sympathetic to the idea. "It is not in California consumers' best interest to allow State Farm General, the largest property insurer in California by far with 20% market share, to go bankrupt or to otherwise withdraw from the California market," said California Department of Insurance attorney Nikki Kennedy. Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the state and national advocacy group Consumer Watchdog , argues otherwise. The group was also party to the hearing. Rosenfield said Prop 103, which regulates the state's insurance market, requires that companies first prove that they need rate increases. He says State Farm has been reluctant to do that. "The way it's been engineered by State Farm, it's a fast track," said Rosenfield. "They want the commissioner to approve their rate increase now, and then figure it out later whether it was justified or not. That's not how the law works in California." There's reason to be skeptical. State Farm was requesting a 30% increase last June, before the Los Angeles county wildfires. After the fires, they initially reduced that amount to 22%. Now that they're being required to show proof, they announced at the hearing that they've lowered the request to 17%. As a result, Consumer Watchdog attorneys asked the judge to strike the evidence being presented. "We've been demanding this information for nine months. And last night, on the eve of this hearing, State Farm sent us six documents," said Rosenfield. "We haven't even had a chance to look at it." However, industry expert Karl Susman told CBS News Bay Area he thinks Consumer Watchdog is just stalling the process. "Can we just get the facts here?" Susman asked. "If they need the rate increases, show us the proof. Nobody cares if it was submitted an hour late or a day late. If the proof exists, let's see it. Let the insurance commissioner decide what he's going to do." Lara may have already decided. He gave provisional approval of the 22% rate hike last month and said he will let the judge decide if it's justified. At the hearing, the California Department of Insurance's lawyers were clear on the state's position. "Normal rules don't apply," said Kennedy. "We're on the Titanic and we see the iceberg. Now is not the time to argue about where to put the deck chairs. There is still time, your honor, to turn this ship around. If we don't, over three million Californians are going in the water. And there are not enough life boats." It's probably not a stretch to compare California's insurance market to a sinking ship. Now the judge will decide if State Farm's claims of poverty actually hold water.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fishermen catch, release great white shark off NC coast
Fishermen Luke Beard and Jason Rosenfeld caught and released a shark Tuesday off the coast of Cape Hatteras on Tuesday. Research group tags 'largest ever' white shark off East Coast 'The biggest priority is keeping the fish safe and get a good release on all fish that we catch,' Beard said. 'I was about in tears after we released that fish, because it's emotional, yeah, that you never know if you're ever going to be able to do that in your lifetime.' The fishermen adhered to state law by releasing the shark without removing it from the water, ensuring the animal's safety and compliance with regulations. 'We are extremely passionate about these animals,' Rosenfield said. According to the fishermen, the shark was estimated to be between 12 and 13 feet long and weighed more than a thousand pounds. 'We are extremely passionate about these animals,' Rosenfield said. However, these estimates have not been independently verified. The encounter highlights the importance of following state laws designed to protect marine life, as demonstrated by Beard and Rosenfeld's responsible actions. VIDEO: Great white shark 'Freya' revisits the Carolinas
