The Business of Watches [026] Christopher Ward CEO Mike France

26:55Mike France:And we wanted to continue and indeed enhance that through physically being able to talk and show to people who are interested in our watchers but we wanted to do it in a cost-effective way non-prime where people could enjoy a real attention and be able without pressure selling whatsoever to try on anything they wanted across the entire range we're led by them we communicate with them beforehand they give us a sense of what they're looking at we prepare that but we also prepare other things and often people change their mind once they see the width of the offer or they handle and feel our watch is in the metal.

27:36Mike France:So that led us to two things, really. How do we establish a bigger footprint in the United States, per se, anyway? And that led me to, it's all business about people. And I had, for some time, been aware of Michael Pearson, who formerly had been with Bremont, then with Wolfe, and then... A legend in the industry. Indeed. In some ways. Indeed. And, you know, when I most latterly was with Zodiac, he had also spotted us. And we met mainly at shows. And I say this, believe it or believe it or not, but most shows, the Chris Ward stand is the busiest. It just is the way it is. And Michael would always wander across.

28:28Mike France:and I'd always say to him, you should come and work for a proper watch company, mate. And eventually he, when I decided we were going to extend our footprint in the US, I could think of no better person to lead the charge than Michael. And it was very clear what we wanted him to do and he was very much up for that. and it was travel the US to begin with, going into more smaller venues, whether they be red bars or other watch groups, of which, as you will know, Andy, there are literally thousands in the United States. There are indeed. It's a big task. And this is about taking Christopher Ward to the people.

29:13Mike France:And one of the first things I said to him was, and I want you to open our first American showroom. He lives in Dallas. today. Dallas, as a metropolitan area, is a top five metropolitan area in terms of watch turnover in the United States. It is in most categories of product. We already had a pretty big following in Dallas. So it seemed very sensible that Michael set up the first showroom in Dallas. And it fitted what we, Peter Ellis, my co-founder and I went out, we trawled around Dallas. Michael had done his pre-research. He had his views about where it might be. We ended up finding a north of Dallas site.

29:58Mike France:You know, it's 40 minutes outside of downtown Dallas in a smallish shopping center, first floor office, lots of dentists, our neighbors, 850 square feet, the first one in Dallas, decided we'd open it and test what happened. Well, what happened was astonishing, partly because of the people Michael and we employed to operate. But it was astonishing. The response was astonishing. And the sales were largely incremental. It wasn't people transferring online from online to Dallas because they lived in Dallas. These were nearly all new customers.

30:36Mark Kauzlarich:And how did people find out about it? I mean, how did you get the word out in this case in Dallas and then with all the other showrooms you have now in Virginia and Liverpool in the UK and New York and London and now in Chicago. How do you let people know that you're there and how it works to make an appointment?

30:56Mike France:Well, we, of course, employ, you know, some of the obvious methods, whether it be, you know, paid social, print advertising locally, etc. But probably the prime mover of that is just word of mouth. people were traveling from all over the united states to the dallas showroom for instance it was astonishing but we have a quite a large database often what happens or certainly is still happening is people who know our brand who maybe purchased our brand they'll have a circle of friends when there's a physical location if that person has never bought before they'll often come with them for the first time or they'll often suggest that they make an appointment and go and check us out which is a very powerful medium um because you're getting um the brand is being presented by an advocate not by us um which is always the most powerful route to of marketing and it grows and grows and grows and they then have friends and they then have friends and they then have friends um so it's a mixture but it's largely driven by i think in the beginning in the early stages of a showroom opening by the followers that we have um who encourage others who aren't as familiar with the brand to go and see us and feel us and see that it's real as opposed to just the hype.

32:14Mark Kauzlarich:And, you know, and some of your information, you talk about some stats. I mean, you said that generally, you know, across these six and now, I guess, hopefully it will continue with your seventh showroom in Chicago. But, you know, you're saying that 70 % of the customers that make appointments are new to the brand. Then you have conversion rates of something like 60 to 70%, at least after a little while. And there are also that all these showrooms are profitable. Yeah, I mean, is this a new way of selling watches?

32:47Mike France:Relatively, I think. It's a paradigm shift and it doesn't suit everybody. I mean, I think it's embedded in the type of brand we are, Andy, and this relationship and this engagement that we have. And the fact that we engage in the type of conversation with people where they feel no pressure to buy. And there's nothing behind glass. You can wander around. It's very interesting, some of the differences between UK and US customers as well.

33:19Mark Kauzlarich:Talk about that. What are the differences that you're finding so far in your retail experience?

33:23Mike France:One of the most interesting and to some extent amusing ones is the Brits, by and large, they make an appointment, they're pretty clear in their own minds what they're looking to buy. As I say, they will move once we've shown them other things sometimes. But it's a conversation only and purely about watchers. In the US, what's interesting is that people will arrive in the showroom and they won't immediately necessarily want to talk about watchers. They present themselves. And so you're engaging firstly in sometimes their life story or certainly their rationale for being interested in watches. So they're much more open to sharing elements of themselves with us in the showrooms.

34:14Mike France:So that leads to a, you have to be a good listener. You have to tell the story, of course, when it's the appropriate time, but you have to listen first and you have to judge how that person wants the story to be told to them and how they want watches presented to them. And I have to say, I think this is, well, it's not necessarily unique, but you don't have that many retail formats that are about appointments. So you've made a commitment in the first place, you've made that appointment, and therefore you're not going to want to have it last five minutes. You know, it's not a quick scout around a boutique.

34:53Mike France:You know, don't quite like the look of whatever's on sale. Don't like the looks I'm getting from some of the staff, etc., etc. Have been ignored or been. No, it's you've decided that you're going to engage. And then the quality of engagement is down to us to make sure that it's what you expect it to be. So these people become, I mean, it's overstating it that they're not friends as such in the real sense of the word of friendship. But they do feel connected and we feel connected to them. And I think one of the reasons for the such high levels of conversion that we're enjoying is down to that level of connection that the guys and the girls that run our showrooms are able to have with these people.

35:40Mike France:And we discovered that there is a sort of an elixir for the sort of people that we want to employ in our showrooms. And it's not your typical watch salesperson.

35:52Mark Kauzlarich:It's interesting, though, when you talk about, you know, that community, obviously, that you create and that different retail experience. Is your customer that you're finding that are coming to these showrooms and having these high rates of transaction, What kind of watch collector or watch experience do they generally have? And how does that translate from the UK to the US? Is it much different? But I mean, are these serious collectors who know about the brand? Are they buying their first luxury watch? Who's your typical customer in these retail locations?

36:26Mike France:Typical is probably hard to pin down, but there are some trends here. In our showrooms, the average transaction value is higher. There is a propensity towards the higher end of our collection. So that which we call the atelier collection, which incorporates things like the Loco, Bel Canto, the new True GMT, we tend to sell more of those in our showrooms than we do online. It's not by a factor of two or three times, but it's a noticeable shift up the scale. But we also do have, of course, people who are buying either into the brand for the very first time, but also into watch collecting for the very first time, or they're moving from quartz to mechanical, or they have a very small collection and they're looking.

37:19Mike France:So we have the full gamut of people, but there is definitely a tendency to higher priced, more complicated watches. Ergo, we probably, we know, we entertain a greater number of serious collectors, if you like, in our showrooms than probably we do online.

37:40Mark Kauzlarich:That's interesting. It makes sense, I suppose, as there's that higher level of engagement, obviously, and indeed a higher value product, for sure. And just last on retail, I mean, is this the then model going forward? Could Christopher Ward ever, could we ever see you in multi-brand retail, traditional retail? I mean, is that out of the question?

38:04Mike France:No. As I've said before, if watches of Switzerland want to throw into touch their usual margin requirements and want to take a very small margin on our watches that allows us to continue with our level of profitability at a times three multiple, then we'll be worldwide with them tomorrow. Chances of that happening, I think, are relatively small. And we do think there's a pretty sizable opportunity for us to enlarge the footprint of our own showrooms. And to be perfectly honest, the type of experience that we want to deliver to our customers, I don't think can be delivered by a third party.

38:46Mark Kauzlarich:And so then talk about where you strategy-wise see that increased footprint. Is it focused in the US, which is your biggest market and continues to grow? Do you have more room in the UK? Could you go to other markets?

39:01Mike France:The answer is yes to all of those questions in a sense. We do see the major focus is currently on the United States and we've identified the markets we believe that we can have a Christopher Ford showroom in. All of this is born from our own cash flow at the moment. So we're probably talking about, I don't know. Well, I do know, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to share. Share away, mate. I've said it before to people, but probably we think between 25 and 30 showrooms in the US is maybe where we'll top out. And you can work out the major metropolitan areas yourself where that would likely be the case.

39:46Mark Kauzlarich:How long would it take you to get to that level, do you think? if we're opening at a rate of you know five five plus stores a year that would be a good target to

39:58Mike France:go for and some of it is is just about our ability to manage that growth and retain the experience and the quality of what we're trying to deliver some of it's about finding the right sites employing the right people all of those things you know fast growth is very possible as long as you've got the cash to do it you know they're very profitable for us so um you know we we we would aim to open more more rapidly if we could but we're also conscious that quality comes first and so i'd rather that we made sure as we are doing um that the experience was as good as it's been thus far all the way through and i've been involved in retail all my life and peter and i between us have probably opened a thousand stores.

40:44Mike France:One of the scars on your back that you learn in that sort of career is you can overexpand too quickly and the quality declines if you're not careful. So we've got enough scars on our back to hopefully make sure that we don't do that.

41:02Mark Kauzlarich:And have you made any, you know, missteps or mistakes so far with these six? I mean, you know, I think the numbers you use are annual revenues averaging between one and a half million pounds and five million pounds. You know, have you got the location or some of the strategy wrong in any places or they've all worked?

41:23Mike France:Not so far, Andy, but we will. We'll make mistakes. We will. I mean, it's, you know, there's no business on earth that doesn't have a misstep. And actually, the first misstep will probably be the best learning we have. but so far not and of course we aim not to and I say with with people like Michael and his team on the ground you know doing this doing this remotely purely remotely would be much more difficult and we're very careful in terms of we're building a profile up of the sort of spaces and the sort of areas that we think work for us it's different in a New York versus a Virginia and we get far more passing traffic in Green Street in Soho than we will in Dallas, for instance.

42:16Mike France:That's pretty obvious. But we will make mistakes. I mean, and I actually want us to make some mistakes because we won't be trying hard enough if we don't. And I want us to try very hard. But we see this as one of the key vehicles for growth.

42:34Mark Kauzlarich:That's interesting. And so at this point, I presume it's still quite a – can you give us any sense of your overall sales, what retail accounts for?

42:44Mike France:Last year, we're headed towards the 50 million mark. That's pound sterling. So this year, the financial year we're in now, which ends next March, I mean, long way to go. Who knows what happens in any one financial year these days. So if you're able to predict that, let me know, will you, Andy? Will do. Yeah, thank you. I don't want to live through another 2025 and you can only have so many liberation days, can't you? So we feel fully liberated now, I have to say. So subject to the geopolitical climate and tariffs and the ever-changing landscape that they provide us all with, we would expect, having had a fairly existential threat, I mean, this is quite serious stuff now.

43:40Mike France:You know, 25 when on April the 2nd, we saw Switzerland on the board that he was holding up with a very large, I think at that stage it was 30 % that he was going to impose on Switzerland. It turned out he imposed 39%. Turned out to be 39%. Which is on top of the 5 % that already existed. But overnight, because we're a direct-to-consumer brand, we didn't therefore hold stock already in the United States. Everything from day zero was going through at a 44 % increase in price. Or we absorb all of it, in which case we go bust very quickly. Existential threat to what was then 50 % and rising of our business.

44:28Mark Kauzlarich:And so, yeah, you had to make some moves in terms of your structure in the U.S. and you changed the way that you distribute the watches there and going through your own entity so you're able to, you know, utilize transfer pricing.

44:45Mike France:Spot on. I mean, we were fortunate in that we'd set up CW Inc. a long time ago. If we hadn't set it up, we wouldn't have been, you know, there's a chance we wouldn't be here today. Literally, it's that big a threat it posed to us. But the finance team, our CFO Joe Keach was magnificent in this and he and the finance team, you know, worked through how we would move a lot of the cost base genuinely. We were thinking about this anyway to the US, move a large chunk of the profit towards the US, which allowed us to affect a cost plus as opposed to a full selling price that would attract duty. and then we have a very close relationship with DHL.

45:31Mike France:In fact, we're one of the top two or three exporters by value into the United States from the UK because all of our watchers come from Switzerland into the UK to be distributed across the world. So we've always had a very close relationship with them. They magnificently, and we'd been working with them on a bulk shipment, break it down in the US into individual parcels, process with them for about 12 months. But we had to accelerate it rapidly, and we managed to do that in the space of a month, something that would normally take another six or seven months to have got to that position, and fantastic support from them.

46:11Mike France:And so that reduced the distribution costs as well. So a whole melange of activity, the like of which I don't wish to go through this year because it was incredibly time-consuming, energy-consuming, and cost-consuming.

46:31Mark Kauzlarich:And just to be clear, so what percentage do you think now retail accounts for your sales and what's the goal? And then we'll continue to talk about maintaining your profitability margin because you've raised prices this year as well. Yeah, yeah.

46:51Mike France:For the first time in two years. And by an average of around 5.5 % to 6 % over the course of two years against a market backdrop, probably averaging over the same period price increases on like-for-like products of probably 15 % to 18%.

47:13Mark Kauzlarich:What were the, I mean, if you can be specific, what were the specific sort of drivers, pressures there? Was it the franc, just inflation in general? Was it tariffs?

47:24Mike France:Currency exchange moved against us, as you know. So that was a good portion of the 6%. then there were inevitably over the course of two years our supply base who had absorbed a lot of potential cost price increases with us that they may have applied to other people because our volumes were going up so you very kindly reminded me that we reached the top 50 in value terms, in terms of Swiss watch brands, in volume terms, we're about 26. Right.

48:05Mark Kauzlarich:About 40 ,000 watches, is that right?

48:08Mike France:Yeah, this year it was just about 43, 44 ,000. And the current year we'll breach 50. So, you know, and on some of our larger platforms, such as Trident, such as Sealand, we're talking serious numbers now. so in terms of our supply base we're working with them but i mean they we spent a lot of time in the recent past um sharing with them our plans and our plans for them within our plans and you know there aren't that many um watch brands that are able to project growth at the rate that we're projecting a to have achieved growth over the past three or four years that we've achieved and also to potentially project growth, you will know only too well.

48:57Mike France:I mean, it's one of my big concerns for the industry in general. Whilst values are going up, volumes continue to decline. That is potentially an existential threat of its own for the watch industry in Switzerland, because if the supply base vanishes, there is no industry. And so I think it's a very major concern.

49:20Mark Kauzlarich:I saw you a couple of years ago. You just made the investment in Paluzzo, a 20 % stake, and they're a sort of component supplier, metal machinist, manufacturer. How has that investment worked out in terms of your supply chain and your components acquisitions? And is it something we might see more of?

49:46Mike France:Yeah, I mean, we couldn't, for instance, have launched the Loco in the way that we were able to do so without Paoluzo's help. We've got things in train at the moment that may not come to fruition until late 27, early 28, that they're heavily involved with or involved with us on. So, yeah, but relatively speaking, they're a fairly minor part of our entire supply chain. And it's sharing with and working with those suppliers that has really enabled us to keep our, and the fact that we are this high growth watch brand at the moment, fingers crossed, and the level of consistency. We don't flip from supplier to supplier.

50:32Mike France:We're very loyal in an industry that, you know, isn't always that way. And feast and famine, as you will know, over the years is one of the real bugbears of any supply base and any supplier. And the watch industry has a tendency to overload when things are good and then find itself hugely overstocked. And then contracts get cancelled. and of course nobody that's not the way the most efficient way to run a supplier yeah a manufacturer so we try as best we can to be consistent to be open and transparent with our suppliers and they have been enormously helpful they understand what we're trying to achieve in terms of the value proposition but event you know you have to be fair with people and they have their own margins to work towards.

51:30Mike France:But, you know, to have a overall price increase on like-for-like products of 6 % over a two-year period when cost inflation, whether it be through currency or material cost increases or labor cost increases, I think isn't bad.

51:49Mark Kauzlarich:No doubt. And so you're, you know, part of that strategy is being very sort of open and clear and sort of forward planning with your suppliers and in terms of your growth. So I think Morgan Stanley suggested that you had 50 % growth in sales from 2024. What kind of growth are you projecting? And is that number correct?

52:18Mike France:Yeah, I mean, since 20, I mean, we've more than trebled in size since 22. too. And whilst the last financial year will not show the same, it's obviously still growth, but because of the tariff situation that we've discussed, that deflated our American sales for a while. They're now back and stronger than ever. So this year we will get back to our normal, we hope, our normal sales trajectory. Certainly the launch only a week ago of the new Sealanders, if that's anything to go by, that's a really great start to the year. But, you know, as I say, you can't, A, you can never be sure these days what's going to happen.

53:01Mike France:But if it's a stable, a relatively stable environment, then we would expect a very strong year again this year, you know, with the US market being more than 50 % of our business. Hmm.

53:18Mark Kauzlarich:Interesting. Interesting. And I mean, what's your sense of the U.S. market? It's where the growth is. It's where all the brands or many brands are focusing their attention these days. What is your sense of the strength of the U.S. consumer and the growth in premium watches?

53:39Mike France:I mean, for us, and I know reading other people's reports, and it's an incredibly robust market and still growing. I think the worry I would have for the American market is what happens to AI businesses and crypto. So a lot of growth, particularly the high end of watches, I think is being driven by those in the tech industry where salaries, bonuses, shares, etc. are fueling huge purchasing patterns. Also crypto. For us, I wouldn't want that necessarily to happen for the entire industry. if there was a deflationary element to AI shares, which I personally think will happen at some point. You're not alone in that prediction?

54:41Mike France:No, exactly. I don't think it marks me out as some sort of seersayer, particularly. But let's assume that at some point, who knows when, but at some point there's going to the bubble. If it doesn't burst and if it's not a dot-com situation of the turn of the century, then I think it will deflate or it shouldn't, it will deflate. I think that will have an impact. For us, that may be beneficial, conversely, because people tend to buy down the scale. I would be particularly concerned if I was a brand that had been hiking prices significantly at the hyper luxury level, which I frankly, again, as we discussed in terms of volume, I think is reaching levels which need to be seriously looked at.

55:31Mike France:It was one of the trends that I picked up in Watches and Wonders you mentioned earlier. You know, I look at some watches. I know, we know, you know, roughly the cost of these watches. I don't know where some of the prices come from.

55:49Mark Kauzlarich:In terms of tariffs, are you accounting for the 10 % or the 50? What are you paying right now? Actually, is it 10 %? Is it 15 %? 15. Yeah, 15. And then are you trying to get that refund for what you did pay into that following the Supreme Court ruling? And how much might that be?

56:13Mike France:I won't tell you precisely, but it's in the millions. It's in the millions, yeah. So we and about, I think in the first day, we and another 358 ,000 companies applied. And that was the first day. Yes, we are. And in fairness to the administration, at the moment, everything seems to be as they said it would be. We have had no refunds. Nobody's had any refunds yet. But the process is working exactly as they said it would. And unless something or somebody changes something, which is always possible, we and many, many hundreds of thousands of other businesses are hopeful that the damage, some of the damage that was done last year will be undone by the repayment of some of these things.

57:05But the costs we incurred, never mind the tariff costs,

57:09Mike France:the costs we incurred as a business to do what we had to do to survive during that period, i.e., A, the lost sales, because it doesn't account for the sales you lost. Of course. Yeah, your prices go up 40%. You know, I'll tell you exactly what that meant to us in that period. We were roughly taking about$90 ,000 a day, yeah? and it went down overnight to$10 ,000 a day.

57:42Mark Kauzlarich:Wow. After April 2nd. So that is indeed an existential threat. And when did it recover and by how much?

57:50Mike France:The biggest drop was from July when he applied the full amount. And that's when we triggered all of the exercises that we spoke about earlier. And so for around about a month or five weeks or so before we got everything in place and we were then able to go back to exactly the 15%, which had been applied previously and the sales recovered pretty much to where they'd been before, that four or five week period was serious stuff. And that's why, as I say, the team here and partners like DHL were magnificent. But that's what we were contending with. And that's what I think most people have no, and why would they, have no concept of what those decisions being taken in D.C.

58:42Mike France:were having on business like ours.

58:45Mark Kauzlarich:On certain industries, indeed, yeah. And it was, as you say, it was existential.

58:49Mike France:But I'm pleased to say, you know, the sales, once we did what we did, recovered almost immediately and have continued to grow. So as I say, we'll take the hit. Some of it will hopefully get back this year, but we'll take the hit in the last financial year. But recover that and more, we hope, this year.

59:07Mark Kauzlarich:And so negative growth then in 2026?

59:12Mike France:No, no, no, no, no. No, no, still positive. it's just not to the level it was uh the previous two years so and the u.s grew uh double digits so you know i mean so interesting but not the level uh that we had um we were headed towards uh and likely to achieve it it undermined that um but still growth um and uh growing very very

59:36Mark Kauzlarich:very rapidly at the moment and as i say yeah i mean can you give us a sense then you know in terms of your long-term strategy, how much you think that retail, your very specific by appointment only retail will account for your sales? As you say, it's higher purchases generally in those stores. Yeah.

1:00:00Mike France:Yeah. It depends over time entirely, as we said before, how many of these stores we're able to open. But we've got a couple of staging posts that are important to us. I've long said, I think Chris Ward is a quarter of a billion pounds sterling brand, just waiting to arrive at that point. Now that's going to take a little while, but the first staging point is 100 million. So around about 140 million US. And we would hope to be hitting that 100 million within the next two to three years.

1:00:40Mark Kauzlarich:Okay. From around 50 million now.

1:00:43Mike France:Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's 50 million sterling. You know, hopefully we'll grow beyond 50 million this year, which, as I say, looks likely, provided everything remains reasonably stable. And, of course, because most of the sales, as we said earlier, from our showrooms are incremental, then the more we can open the faster we can open them successfully and profitably and manage them whilst delivering the same quality of experience that will determine essentially how we go but we're still growing online as well it's not it's not as if because it's product first it's you know it's always product first with us and you know I've got the benefit of knowing what the pipeline looks like and i have to say you know the um the the product development team um uh it's it's i'm more excited now than i've ever been well that's interesting i mean because you've you know you've

1:01:43Mark Kauzlarich:done some extreme you know beginning back with the belcanto which i think we would both uh you would you have certainly said i mean it's an absolute game changer for the brand in terms of you know visibility and sort of people looking at the brand and what you could do you've just You know, you followed that up with the Loco. There's been, you know, the True GMT that you did earlier this year, bringing, you know, a flyer GMT to, you know, in-house to the line. And then you've, you know, refined and updated the Sealandr collection. Yeah, I mean, give us a sense of where you're going in terms of product.

1:02:23Mark Kauzlarich:Should we expect more of the Bel Canto sort of game changer kind of products or upgrades and shifts to existing lines? Both.

1:02:37Mike France:We constantly want to surprise ourselves and therefore hopefully surprise our followers. It's, um, but both ends of the spectrum are equally important to us. I mean, we have, you know, Sealander acquires as more new customers in absolute numbers than any other arena. You know, the Sealander GMT is our number one recruitment tool, if you like, into the brand. and that's why last week was such an important launch for us even though it's what most people would, well it is at our entry level. But as you know Andy, we've talked about it before, we set up not on the usual model. We don't play by the same rules in terms of range construction or pricing construction or platform construction.

1:03:28Mike France:We're able to move from entry level sealanders through to highly sophisticated complications. And we want to continue to push at both ends. So we've got in development, we've got some astonishing things if they come to fruition ultimately at both ends of the scale. Particularly, I think the next, I think this autumn we'll see some really outstanding launches. I'm very very optimistic about this autumn and as I say as we look at 27, 28 there may be and I don't want to be a hostage to fortune here because you just never know but we've been working on something for two and a half years now that if we pull it off you know we'll be one of hopefully could be one of those moments again but hey you know we don't but honestly I am It is a very exciting time.

1:04:33Mike France:And genuinely, genuinely, and I've been around a while, you know, I can't remember feeling as excited and as positive about anything, not just in Christopher Ward's world since 2004, but in my entire career. I'm more excited now about what we have ahead of us than anything that's been delivered so far.

1:04:57Mark Kauzlarich:Product-wise, indeed. That's quite something. And I mean, yeah, when I think about your average price point, just to understand, I think Morgan Stanley estimates around 1 ,300 Swiss francs. Pretty good. Yeah, they're pretty accurate, Morgan Stanley. They're pretty good. And so, am I right? While continuing to deliver the value proposition of not costing more than three times your cost, we will expect some higher priced, higher end complications in models in the future. You'll be moving upscale at some ends of the spectrum.

1:05:34Mike France:Yeah, absolutely. But also expect some enhancements of entry level as well and new products at that level and mid-level as well. It's the automotive model. We don't know which lane we're in sometimes because we don't recognize the lane. So we'll swim in any lane we want. And I think that's one of the freedoms the brand has that many brands, particularly those that are in larger groups, just don't have. They can't swim outside their lane. We delight in swimming outside our lane. And it seems so far some people also like us swimming outside our lane as well.

1:06:21Mark Kauzlarich:And last thing, I mean, then would you ever consider a sub-brand or, you know, at either end of the spectrum? Or do you want everything to exist within the Christopher Ward name?

1:06:35Mike France:The answer is no. You know, if we're – our brand is – it's hard enough to build a single brand and be true to it over time and keep focused on it. it is possible to develop sub-brands within our platforms i we have the sub-brands if you like that matter to us under this chris ward umbrella so trident has become a a very recognized dive watch brand um in its own right sealander as an adventure watch brand you know sound through bel Panto is something that we've begun to own. We've become, I'd like to believe, renowned for case construction. You know, the Lightcatcher case, we very early on, you know, back 10 years, 11 years ago now, we decided that we wanted to really become expert at case design and do something that the industry wasn't because most of it is slab-sided and very little time and attention, which is a cost issue, and I understand it.

1:07:44Mike France:I understand why people go slab-sided. But we chose to zig when others zagged on that sense. You know, Lume, we're becoming renowned for our Lumiere collection, our approach to luminosity and watches, which is one of the key things that watch fans love about any watch. We work with a small family-owned business that has developed and has the patent on Loom that only very few brands are able to use. We're one of them. They choose to work with us. They also choose to work with Patek. so at our you know at our sort of price pointing and our sort of mid luxury level if you like you know i think we've become the leaders of uh of the pack in terms of luminosity in watches and there are many things that that i think we can if we're brave um because i think we're absolutely at our best when we're at our boldest as tony blair once said about uh new labor but i believe it to be true of us.

1:08:52Mike France:When we're at our boldest, we're at our best. And we've got some bold, we're working on some really bold stuff at the moment, which is why I'm so excited. There's more ahead than behind, that's for sure.

1:09:03Mark Kauzlarich:Great. Well, you know, I've taken up an hour of your time. I have a million other questions to ask you, but I think this was a good focused discussion on Christopher Ward and we wish you the best of luck for this year.

1:09:18Mike France:Thanks, Andy. And And again, thanks for having me.

1:09:21Mark Kauzlarich:It was my pleasure.

1:09:26Mark Kauzlarich:And that's the business of watches for this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Please head on over to hodinky.com where you can join the discussion and leave any comments or questions about this episode or the business of watches in general. Who knows? We might even answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening and see you next time.