{Published on January 10, 2013} At a time when sapphire has just celebrated its eighty-year introduction in watchmaking, who remembers this holding firm grouping together the companies LeCoultre, Jaeger LeCoultre and Favre Leuba, whose initials stood for Société Anonyme de Participation Horlogères et Industrielles Réunies?

That was before the trend of acquisitions, takeover bids and family cessions. Favre Leuba was still in family hands, before being sold several times in a series of economical peregrinations that made it belong to Martini (!) and then to the Bacardi group (Benedom) before landing temporarily in the hands of the Spanish group Valfamily, with improbable hopes of a comeback, and then becoming the property of the eponymous Indian conglomerate of Ratan N. Tata in 2011.

This SAPHIR holding company, headed by Henry-Auguste Favre, the seventh generation of a mythical watchmaking dynasty, saved the three brands, which were then shaken by the crisis. This information helps us understand why Henry-Auguste’s wife gave an Atmos to the Queen Mother of England, according to a sepia treasure found in the rich archives of the Favre family, of which Laurent Favre ‘”tenth generation, is the guardian. Moreover, he is working to revive this name in the most beautiful watchmaking way: A. Favre & Fils. Read again the dynastic post about this illustrious family.