Investcorp, the Bahrain-based investment bank, on 14 September sold its wholly-owned subsidiary Groupe Horloger Breguet to The Swatch Group of Switzerland. No details as to the pricing of the transaction have been confirmed, but it is understood to be in the region of SF 180 million-200 million ($117 million-130 million).

Breguet, acquired by Investcorp in 1987 for an undisclosed fee, is the premier producer of 'haut-de-gamme' timepieces in the world. Its business strategy and performance has been transformed under Investcorp ownership with the range of watches and the number of outlets sharply reduced, and unit sales growing at around 10 times.

'The acquisition by Swatch is in line with general consolidation within the luxury goods sector,' says an Investcorp source. 'And this was a natural sale from Investcorp's portfolio.'

The deal is the first divestment made by Investcorp this year. Two major acquisitions have been made: Stratus Enterprise Computer Division from leading networking group Ascend Communications in January; and Zeneca Specialities, the speciality chemicals division of AstraZeneca, in tandem with the UK's Cinven in May (MEED 21:5:99; 22:1:99).

'There are no major divestments planned for the immediate future,' says the source. 'With the Y2K issue any deal that isn't announced by mid-November won't go ahead before the end of the year.' He adds that for similar reasons further tranches of the Eur 500 million($520 million) medium-term note programme announced in May are unlikely before the end of the year (MEED 11:6:99).