It was founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland in 1848 years by a 23 year old Louis Brandt who assembled key wound precision scale pocket watches from parts which were supplied by local craftsmen. Vintage Omega He travelled a lot throug all Europe and was selling his watches from Italy to Scandinavia countries by way of England, his main market. After Louis Brandt’s death in 1879, two sons of him: Louis-Paul and Cesar, troubled by irregular deliveries which were questionable quality, and people stopped buying their watches. Sons abandoned the unsatisfactory assembly workshop system in favour of in house manufacturing and total control. Due to the larger supply of men power, communications and energy in Bienne city, the enterprise moved into a small factory in the first quater of 1880 years, then they bought the entire building in December, after making enough money. Two years later, this company moved into converted spinning factory in the Gurzelen place of Bienne, where head quarters are still existing and nowadays. Their first series produced calibres, Labrador and Gurzelen, and also, the famous Omega calibre of 1894 year, which is well known in all the world, would ensure the brand’ s marketing and selling success. Louis Paul and Cesar Brandt both died in 1903, taht was just like a catastroph, because they had left one of Switzerland’ s largest watch companies - with more than 240 thousand watches produced each year and employing about 800 people - in the hands of four young men, the oldest of whom was Paul Emile Brandt, and he was only 23yo. Considered to be the great builder of OMEGA watches, Paul Emile’s impact would be felt over the next 50 years. The poor economic situation brought on by the First World War and lead him to work actively from 1925 toward the union of OMEGA and Tissot, and only then to their merged in 1930 with the group SSIH, Geneva. Under his long leadership, which Joseph Reiser beginning in 1955, the SSIH Group continued growing and multiply, absorbing or building some fifty companies. At about 1965, SSIH had become Switzerland’ s number one producer and manager of finished watches and NR. 3 in whole world. Weakened by the severe monetary crisis and recession from 1975y. to 1980y., SSIH was bailed out by the banks in 1981y. That was pretty fast and Switzerlands other watchmaking giant ASUAG, main producer of movement blanks, owner of these great brands of watches: Longines, Rado and Swatch brands, was saved in similar fashion after one year. After drastic financial cleansing and again after low economics, the two giants merged in 1983 to make the Holding ASUAG-SSIH. In midle 1985 years the holding company was taken over by some private investors under the strategy and leadership of Nicolas Hayek. They were fast renamed to SMH, Société suisse de Microélectronique et d’Horlogerie, the new group raised rapid growth and real success to become today’ s top watch producer in all the world. They were named Swatch Group in 1998, ten years ago, it now includes both of Blancpain and Breguet. Dynamic and flourishing, OMEGA remains us their one of its most prestigious and expensive brands.
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