Biel/Bienne, June 30, 2010 – At today's meeting, the Board of Directors of The Swatch Group Ltd. unanimously appointed Mrs. Nayla Hayek, until now Vice-President, as Chairwoman of the Board of Directors.
Mrs. Nayla Hayek has been prepared for this function during the past years and has longstanding experience within the Board of Directors. In addition, she was sucessfully active in various operational functions during the last years.
The Board of Directors has honored the immeasurable merits of Nicolas G. Hayek and will keep him in grateful memory as founder The Swatch Group Ltd. and visionary pioneer.
Swatch Group AG, Switzerland’s largest watchmaker, said Nayla Hayek will become chairwoman, succeeding her father, the late Nicolas Hayek.
Swatch Group has prepared Nayla Hayek for the position over the past years, the Biel-based company said in a statement today. She was voted in unanimously, the maker of Omega and Breguet watches said. Nayla Hayek becomes the only woman to chair a company of the Swiss benchmark SMI Index.
Nicolas Hayek, a businessman of Lebanese origin credited with reviving Switzerland’s watch industry as it faced Japanese competition, died of heart failure on June 28 at age 82. His children are teaming up to lead the company, with Nicolas Hayek’s son, Nick Hayek Jr., filling the role of chief executive officer since 2003.
“It shows the family is going ahead together: the driver in the company will continue to be Nick, and the family will continue to be the main shareholder,” said Rene Weber, an analyst at Bank Vontobel in Zurich. “The good point is that it shows the two children of Nicolas Hayek are committed to the company.”
Nayla Hayek became vice chairman of Swatch Group in May and runs its Tiffany Watch unit. She joined the watchmaker’s board of directors in 1995.
She studied at the European University of Montreux, Switzerland and is known for her interest in horses. Her connections as a member of the World Arabian Horse Organization and as a horse judge have helped the watchmaker’s business and marketing, Swatch Group has said on its website.
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Nayla Hayek is also responsible for Swatch Group’s Middle Eastern unit centered in Dubai, the company’s Indian business, and the Balmain brand. She became a full employee of Swatch Group in 2007 after helping the company in an advisory role.
CEO Nick Hayek Jr. joined the company after a career in filmmaking and after he dropped out of business school. He has overseen gains of 70 percent in earnings per share and 34 percent in sales since 2003, a period that includes the worst drop in Swiss watch exports since the 1930s.
The Hayek family and a group of investors together own about 41 percent of the voting rights.
Nayla Hayek’s son Marc is head of the company’s Blancpain brand. Marc is a candidate to eventually replace Nick Hayek Jr. as CEO, Jon Cox, an analyst at Kepler Capital Markets, has said.
Though Swatch Group has a “number of battle-hardened managers,” the one post that will be difficult to fill is a new head for Breguet, Alessandro Migliorini, an analyst at Helvea in Geneva, wrote in a report yesterday. Nicolas Hayek was chairman of that brand, one of the company’s most expensive.
Swatch Group fell 0.5 percent to 305.8 francs as of 4:04 p.m. in Zurich trading.
