Last year the Richemont Group added Roger Dubuis to its luxury watch collection of brands. Richemont owns such prestigious brands as A. Lange & Sohne, Jaeger LeCoultre, and Panerai. The acquisition of the Roger Dubuis occurred in the midst of wild growth in key markets such as Asia and the Middle East. With surges expected, Roger Dubuis promoted a liberal hiring policy adding new staff quickly.

Recent revenue disappointments have resulted in a decision to lay off as much as one sixth of the Roger Dubuis work force, or about 70 people. The move will emphasize a marketing refocus for the brand that hopes to increase its presence in retail stores as well as complete production on highly sought after high-end models.

Roger Dubuis seems eager to express that this move does not signify an end to the esteemed watch maker, nor does it indicate a slew of bad management decisions. No one is immune from the current economic market, and Roger Dubuis was perhaps a bit too optimistic with its growth and watch production capacity. Unlike "Tier One" luxury watch brands with the most valuable brand names, Roger Dubuis is less known (making them "Tier Two'), even though they still offer a very high quality and complex watch product line. This can negatively affect the value proposition of buying their watches in hard times for some consumers.

Despite this news, Roger Dubuis customers are still eagerly awaiting the release of its most expensive watch date, a $500,000 complex multi-timezone perpetual calendar timepiece. Pictured, is a Roger Dubuis Excalibur with a 45mm white gold case, minute repeater, perpetual calendar, tourbillion, and double rotors.

Via Bloomberg News.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Back in April, luxury conglomerate LVMH picked up watchmaker Hublot and now their rivals in luxury branding Richemont, have announced they bought have controlling interest in Geneva watch company, Roger Dubuis. They have purchased a 60 percent stake from founder Carlos Dias, who started the brand in 1995. The Roger Dubuis brand produces watches that are known both for their craftsmanship and their sense of whimsy in collections like the "Too Much" line.

Roger Dubuis will continue to produce watches in their factory and will operate as an 'autonomous maison' within Richemont. Richemont, also owns Cartier as well as other companies that have watch lines such as Dunhill, IWC, Panerai and Piaget.

At SIHH in Geneva Roger Dubuis showed off their limited edition Vintage Grand Prix Collection. There will be 28 pieces in both a GoldenSquare case and an Hommage Sympathie case. The selling feature of these two gold watches are their enameled dials with vintage racing motifs. Like other Dubuis watches, it's more fun than fierce as opposed to other racing-themed watches we've seen lately.