Bahrain-based Investcorp announced on20 October that it had sold Swiss watchmaker Ebel and French jeweller Chaumet to France's LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. No financial details of the deal have been released.

Analysts say negotiations for the deal had been running for some time. 'LVMH has been dripping news on the deal for weeks in an attempt to increase pressure,' says one source.

Pricing for Investcorp's 100 per cent stake in Ebel has not been disclosed but analysts say it is likely to be based on the same multiple of sales used in Investcorp's divestment of Groupe Horloger Brequet to The Swatch Group in September (MEED 1:10:99). It is understood that Brequet, also a producer of luxury watches, was priced between one-and-a-half to two times sales. With Ebel's turnover estimated to be about SF 200 million ($137 million), analysts expect it to be valued at between $200 million- 275 million.

The Ebel and Chaumet deal is only the second divestment made by Investcorp this year. The investment bank's major acquisitions include Stratus Enterprise Computer Division from Ascend Communications, and, in conjunction with the UK's Cinven, Zeneca Specialities, the speciality chemicals division of AstraZeneca (MEED 21:5:99; 22:1:99).