The company’s board of directors and its CEO René Kamm reached the joint decision and announced Kamm’s resignation on 3 August, days after Swatch Group’s departure from Baselworld shook the industry and raised further concern for the already faltering fair.
Kamm spent almost 20 years with the MCH Group, beginning as a director of Baselworld in 1999.
“I had the opportunity to get to know every aspect of this segment and, as CEO from 2003 on, drive the group's development from a nationally aligned trade fair company to an internationally aligned Live Marketing Group,” Kamm said in a company statement.
MCH Chairman Ulrich Vischer will take over operational leadership until a successor is appointed.
The corporate restructuring of MCH Group is part of the company’s “transformation process” largely in response to Swatch Group’s announcement, which came off the tail end of a rough year for Baselworld 2018. The fair suffered the loss of an estimated 850 in the last few years and has continued its decline.
CNBC conducted a phone interview with Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group, the day after his company’s announcement. Without knowledge of Kamm’s forthcoming resignation, Hayek was frank with the press and cited MCH Group’s “arrogant” nature as one of its reasons for leaving.
“They have to reinvent themselves. We are ready to help them, but for 2019 we are definitely out,” he stated.
“The Swiss watch industry is booming with or without Baselworld.”
In Swatch Group’s original company statement it concluded the company’s choice to host the event at its Messe Basel venue was ultimately at the cost of exhibitors and could not be justified.
It stated: “The MCH Group, which organises Baselworld, is clearly more concerned with optimising and amortising its new building - which, incidentally, is largely financed by the watch industry during the fairs - than it is in having the courage to make real progress and to bring about true and profound changes.”
Following the 2018 event, Baselworld lost its managing director Sylvie Ritter after 15 years at the helm; Michel Loris-Melikoff took over the role on 1 July.
Earlier this year, Jeweller estimated the number of exhibitors at the 2018 show was down by half, from 1,300 to about 650 after the event was cut from its eight day program to six.
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Swatch Group withdraws from Baselworld
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