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Swiss family-owned watchmaker Norqain has announced it has partnered with former Manchester United footballer Gary Neville, as the brand prepares to enter the UK market.
Norqain chief executive Ben Küffer confirmed Neville will take a seat on the company’s board, chaired by Küffer’s father, Marc. The appointment follows the former player’s “significant”, but undisclosed investment in the watchmaker. The 50-year-old Neville is expected to play an active role in the business’s UK strategy and, according to Küffer, has already joined budget meetings as well as conversations with retailers alongside newly appointed UK managing director Martyn Jenkins.
“We don’t need a poster boy, [or] somebody who was just going to be on a billboard,” said 37-year-old Küffer. “I’m actually looking for someone with a network. With Gary, we’re super lucky because he’s also an experienced entrepreneur already.”
Neville — whose Relentless Group has ventures in hospitality, media, property and education as well as sport — said he has only recently become interested in watches, but was drawn to the independence and challenger status of the company. “Sometimes people get presented with Excel spreadsheets which show a return at the bottom and if it shows a good return they’ll invest in it,” said Neville. “I’m just not like that. For me, it has to be something different. It has to be disruptive and I have to be passionate about it.”
Neville co-owns Salford City Football Club with former teammates and is also involved in the £120mn St Michael’s development programme in Manchester alongside US private equity firm KKR. “I like the challenge of setting up something from scratch,” he said. “Obviously Gary Neville’s never going to set up his own watch company, but this is almost as good in some ways.”
Norqain, which was co-founded in 2018 by Swiss former professional ice hockey player Mark Streit, has a history of partnering with sporting figures. Last year, tennis player Stanislas Wawrinka invested in the brand, joining ice hockey player Roman Josi and skier Tina Weirather. Neville is the first such partner to join the board, however. Küffer said the marketing clout of bringing in such famous names “allowed us to build our network in Switzerland quite quickly, and it felt like a copy-paste success story that you could then bring to other markets, but you need the right person”.
Jenkins said Norqain raised SFr7mn ($7.92mn) two years ago in a fundraising round, which also saw watch industry veteran Jean-Claude Biver become an investor and subsequently brought in as an adviser to the board.
With a focus on lightweight watches that incorporate its own proprietary composite material, Norqain has made sport the main narrative of its brand. It sponsors marathons in Berlin, Zurich and Geneva, and last month announced it had signed as the official watch partner of the Swiss national football teams.
The introduction to Neville came through the Hollywood talent agents Creative Artists Agency, but Küffer sees opportunities beyond sport, citing Neville’s experience in media production and hospitality, as well as charity events and initiatives.
“We’re also something of an entertainment company, if you will,” said Küffer. “In addition, we’re looking at possibilities with his hotels to see what we can do there.”
Norqain has grown rapidly since its launch, attempting the rare challenge of entering the mainstream watch industry at scale. It produces between 10,000 and 15,000 watches per year with an average sale price of SFr4,500, according to Küffer, who said that despite a tough outlook for the industry as a whole, Norqain grew its revenues by 28 per cent in 2024.
“Of course the industry is very difficult [right now],” he said. “But we don’t have [sales in] Asia, so we have zero impact of the China slowdown.” Küffer, who said that volumes rose by 12 per cent in the same period, has set a goal of tripling the brand’s current revenues by 2028, which will mark the company’s first decade of operation. “In distribution terms, we would like to be at between 500 and 700 stores,” he says. “We’re at 300 stores today. We expect the average price to go up to SFr5,000; we want our bracket to be between SFr3,000 and SFr7,000, whereas today we’re more between SFr2,000 and SFr6,000.”
Küffer said that Norqain — which next year plans to open offices both in the UK and Europe — is targeting future growth without further rounds of fundraising. “The UK is such a big market that you need to muscle up and say, ‘I’m ready to come’,” said Küffer. “And when you come, you have to bring some money to the game; otherwise you’re not going to get far. And I think now we’re perfectly ready for that.”
