Three of the world's top luxury watch brands will no longer exhibit at the annual watch fair in Basel, Switzerland, the world's largest watch and clock trade show. They are IWC (International Watch Co.) and Jaeger-LeCoultre, both Swiss firms, and Länge & Söhne, a German firm. They comprise the Les Manufactures Horlogeres group (LMH), which was purchased last summer by the Paris-based Richemont Group.
The three will join the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), a small luxury watch show in Geneva that Richemont helped start 11 years ago in protest against the Basel show. Fourteen other luxury watches (many of them Richemont brands, such as Cartier, Baume & Mercier, Piaget, and Vacheron Constantin) already exhibit at SIHH. The SIHH has periodically encouraged other luxury watches, most of whom exhibit in Basel, to join it in Geneva, the longtime home of many luxur