February News – Ed Sheeran opens up, plus corporate shenanigans from Patek Philippe, LVMH and...

[Music] hello and welcome to ota podcast we're here to talk about watches time and corporate crime my name is felix johns and i'm andy green felix uh lol jokes we're not talking about corporate crime but we do have a bit of news and a few new new newsy releases to chat about so uh no guests no guests this week no we don't need one this week just sorry so if you're confused by the fact that ed sheeran is inevitably gonna be in our headline we're not actually speaking to him but we're speaking about him about him speaking to uh someone else yeah sure uh can i tell you what i've been up to yeah i dug a hole back how far down to how far down did you get uh a bit of context here uh i went on a holiday i haven't haven't been on a holiday in a while what we've you know global pandemics and travel restrictions and all that jazz it's been uh tricky uh so i went down to the beach turned off turned off uh whatsapp notifications for a week for a few of the work related chats and spent some time in the sun dug a hole kids played in the hole it's pretty good good time you take them out of the hole before you left or you leaving there well uh they got in the hole and defended the hole from the encroaching tide in what i like to think is a uh metaphor for life and aging it's deep did you ever watch the um that film holes oh is that steve's art i don't know but i i just remember in high school they made us watch it and analyze it like 18 times and was it was punishment for the naughty kids they had to go out to the desert and dig holes i've certainly watched tremors uh but before we get into uh the other thing that i noticed while i was on holiday i did have some time to to catch up on on my watch related news i saw a story on um watchinista uh that hit a particular intersection of things i find cool uh story about josh shanks who's one of the main guys there um how he ended up with one of the original apple watch editions like these are the the gold ones that i think like beyonce had and a few other sort of influencers had right when they launched and he like i don't think they made a lot of them but he saw like a family friend or someone had one and he ended up with it and he has some thoughts about it and it's kind of kind of cool like it's this luxury object with a that sort of obsolete so josh bought this he found it and bought it well he was prepared to buy it or like it was exploring buying it but i think it was like a family friendly ended up just giving it to him okay um so he worked he worked at apple that was the other thing like you had like a macaroon site and you know who knew i probably was reading his stuff on max before you know watches were everything in either of our lives really yeah because he's got quite the tech background doesn't he yeah like yeah he was like a genius and all that all that jazz so yeah that was uh just a cool story i quite liked it it you know i always liked watches and tech and you know quirky historical things like that so yeah i'll link that up in the notes and worth a read if you've got a spare 10 minutes yeah so it's interesting so the the gold value of that watch would also be um would be a fair bit of gold right yeah and this is before they did i think the next round of gold ones was like that weird ceramic gold um that sort of hublot uses as well that is like gold theoretically but really it's ceramic with gold alloy in there as yeah anyway uh yeah this is like pretty pretty hefty well that's cool felix yeah i thought that was nice hey uh have you got any any anything you've been up to any cool stories any random random facts well i know you're on leave but i broke your and your leave rule because i did say i know you're the cool facts are your thing but i did see something that was pretty cool and i thought i would send it to you i think we can both agree that this is a pretty cool fact yeah so it was an article that i stumbled upon from 2018 that talks about business inside art article yeah business insider talks about how like modern body armor as we know it obviously body armor has been around for a long time but i think we're talking about like bulletproof kevlar kevlar sort of thing yep was was like created by this ex-marine who was a pizza delivery guy who was tired of getting shot at and he i think he he delivered a pizza to this house must have been a rough neighborhood it was detroit in the 90s detroit in the 90s yeah and so he like turns up and they like shot at him so he went away and then he got an order for the next week at the same address and that time this time he was prepared so he went back with a gun with a gun and i think got some shots in and whatever it was it led to led to the invention of uh modern you know so the a few things about the the the thing after that that um so he got shot a couple of times in this sort of like attempted robbery i think they were just like rolling the delivery guy uh and what happened after he got out from hospitals they had burnt down his work yeah it burnt out the pizza shop but like yeah he this was at the time like he they sort of invented like modern kevlar and as i assume ex-marines can do managed to get a hold of some and no one really wanted to buy it like they weren't convinced by it so for something else right well i think kevin i i don't know but but like he sort of pitched it to police forces to buy and no one really wanted to do it so he did a demonstration where he just shot himself so no no it was used it was another company had made it um for like as a tyre like a wheel type technology yeah yeah and so that's i'm guessing there's another factor around why kevlar was invented then it was probably for car tires because it was lightweight and durable that's right here yeah so he shot himself 190 times um as i said like you know to prove that it worked which is pretty uh pretty ballsy but i reckon to me this has all the makings of a movie somewhere between uh the the history of mcdonald's the founder and iron man you know what i mean like it's it's a classic american racks to reach a story with you know guns i just see that read that no yeah he went back like that's pretty ballsy and gutsy bit what else has he done like what other stories has his old mate has he got he's got some stories exactly my question is who would you get who would you cast as an ex-marine pizza delivery inventor that's a tough question i wish you'd asked me so i could think about it a little bit more oh well you had the notes uh who would you cast uh i mean mark wahlberg's the obvious choice but he's i mean that's that depends what sort of movie you want like you do you want this to be like a pro-american action movie or you want it to be a bit more of a think piece like i don't know maybe like bruce willis had some he'd still he could do it but he'd have to be like quite an aged vet um no well i think no i think 90s vibes as well um also potentially oh what's his name god the night he's one oscars hey you come up with some other ones well i try and it's tom hardy it's probably a tom hardy films no no no no no no no no no do you think no no no no jason statham no no maha sharla ali you know the guy from like yeah and yeah yeah yeah okay serious yeah he'd be good mm-hmm all right well maybe we should put put something together and see if we can get this um get this made and get a producer any hollywood types listening out there uh well i think we need to write the script uh maybe producer michael maybe he can do some workshops on this we should uh god let's turn this into a script um speaking speaking of felix we need to take a quick break yeah let's do it and now andy time to have a quick chat about this week's sponsor autumn strap let's get right into it australia's own arsenal make some of the best sale cloth straps we've seen period so cloth straps are great they offer a casual look and they won't get ruined by water too often i find they're cheap perhaps even downright 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new i don't know if you saw it but there's this new uh podcast or series that ben climber launched yeah and the debut guest was ed sheeran so quick note he has been on her dinky before back in 2019 so we'll link up that everyone forgot about that i never did i never did but it was cause he said he said in this letter i'll talk about watches when i'm ready basically and it was you know detailed enough later well back on video so i have a few i have a few thoughts a few questions first of all i really appreciate the content it's like nearly 50 minutes uh very nicely produced really interesting but my first question felix what's going on with ben climber he's back on the scene in a big way yeah i yeah look i i see a bit of his on stories some stories i saw some linkedin activity who knows ben climber maybe he's he's probably just as bored as everyone else um he's up to something do you reckon yeah he's up to some moves he's made these are moves these are back on instagram he's obviously he's got his um his golf podcast but he's back he's back he's been very active this and he's come out swinging with an interview with a sit-down interview with ed sheeran this is like this is how you launch a new season of oprah but for watch people something something is uh is going on there all right so we've discussed this a little bit uh offline felix yeah i haven't seen it full disclosure you've not seen it no no no no no i mean i'm too cool for that no i just haven't seen it i haven't had the time so why don't i uh why don't i ask you i'll explain a few things about it and then we can we can go through some questions we had so yeah ed sheeran sits down sort of talks about what his his watch collecting journey um it's pretty light touch but it's more detailed than i was expecting like a lot more detail very candid um he's very charming obviously one of the things i really liked is that he didn't hide the fact that you know being one of the world's biggest touring artists has its perks especially when it comes to allocation but he didn't know none of that i'm on the waitlist just like everyone else a lot of that sort of like he still waits for things he was but he was sort of like oh yeah i've got someone i can call for this i've got some like of course you would of course you would if you had sharon and you know you he waits for it to be delivered he he toured for two or three years straight right with um with the divide tour so i found that really interesting uh he talked about how he's been trying to get one of the tiffany patek 5711s and that's proving challenging yeah um that's cool i found it really interesting that he he talks about his friendship with john mayer a lot and sort of i think it's cool that they're like watchmates um i think i i think like in anything you need sort of uh people that understand you around you and i mean like i've said if you're a giant musician that happens to be fairly seriously into watches aren't that many people you could chat to about it on a equal sort of way like someone's like a lot of people i imagine would be trying to sell him stuff or fan family everyone everyone uh but old john he's probably uh playing it's right playing it straight straight back uh he talks about custom watches so yeah one of uh one of our friends and and previous guest george bamford gets to mention which i found you know quite cool ed sheeran giving you a plug anyways pretty cool and i actually i posted the video like a screenshot of the video as i was watching it and george responded he's like oh that's pretty cool cool to see um and i just said george right like ed sheeran is talking about you to 400 000 people so far i think that's a little bit cooler um but it's cool to see that he resp that there's this sort of mutual respect that goes on and i think for me it was a glimpse behind what ed's thinking like thought process is and like it's it's a peak behind the curtains of a whole different world of like watch collecting that's really really private and at this sort of like level you know most people can't imagine i will also say felix he does spoil no time to die so keep like watch that film before you watch this okay fair i mean i think i've had it spoiled a few in a few places but you know god he just he hit me with the spoiler just there was no warning and ben gave him a free pass which you know let's just say that her dinky's not getting any amiga sponsorship anytime soon i doubt they'll have any impact at all [Laughter] so what are your questions what are you you had some questions yeah so we were talking about it i said if you've seen it you should watch it i'm on holidays and we'll watch it later and then i think you asked me why would he do it why now because because that's sort of the thing i mean i've spoken to like i think um maybe jack or ben or someone at a dinky in the past has said we will never get alan on because there is nothing in it for alan yep and i think these days maybe they don't want eleanor but that's a a different catalyst so i think that same sort of statement uh applies to to ed so why why do you think he did it i mean i think he's he's a very big touring artist right obviously recording as well but this yeah as i said i think he toured two years straight for the divide tour and that's when everyone got a tutor a custom due to watch at the end of it but that's a lot of touring and there's the money to it but it's keeping busy i think he's i you know it's like someone who follows him on instagram as well i think he's just kind of adapting with the times like he's been very impacted by an inability to tour and travel obviously not as bad as it as it is for us aussies but he's he's probably been impacted that in a way and he's probably a little bit bored and he's just being a bit more active and trying to you know it's just a way of reaching new people that's probably nice for him it's probably nice for him to kind of talk about it on his own terms do you what do you think of the optics of and i think you've sort of alluded to this like the optics of someone because i think this is why a lot of people that are sort of rich and famous tend to be a little bit uh discreet about their ridiculousness um like does he come off maybe bad having all these access to watches that that other people don't or does it does it is it the genuineness that sort of makes it because this would be this would be easy for like i don't know the new york post or the daily mail to write a story about ed sheeran braggs about being one in the one percent or whatever it is like that could be the outcome of it well i i mean i don't see how because i think everyone knows that if you're selling if you know if you're selling hundreds of millions of albums and getting all these streams and touring for two years straight and doing stadium tours like i think he did a dozen or so just in melbourne sold out 100 000 people every show jesus you're making a lot of money right yeah and if you make a lot of money you're probably spending a lot of money and at this point he's been spotted every watch he ever wears nearly every watch there's some he revealed that no one knew about it because he also is very private but yeah it's a bit hard to cry poor uh if you've got richard mills and patek and he on there does this come across as braggy or no not at all braggy i mean if it was he was very charming about it it wasn't braggy he's not i don't think that that's his personality the only brag is the only flex that i really took from it from uh ed's side and that was him saying how he doesn't have a mobile phone he ditched it uh he thinks that mobile phone technology needs to go back uh a couple of years which i agree um but he's in he's the only the really kind of privilege that he displayed was the ability to not have a mobile phone and have you know someone needs to get to him he's got a person that will hand him a phone or whatever someone else he's probably got 10 mobile phones but they are in charge of people around him you know yeah and it's he emails so if you want to get in touch with him like if you're a mate you'd email him and he'll check his computer every few days uh as a way of kind that to me is like the biggest flex ever right like pretty wild yeah and good for him good for him it would be pretty hectic i mean could you imagine opening his instagram account so that it is a yeah then i thought all these posts he puts up it's definitely not him yeah i mean yeah yeah who have i been dming them who who have been chatting to who has seen those pictures yeah and ben's back ben's come out you know launched a new a new sort of series with quite the uh quite the flex yeah that's pretty interesting i think that's uh and that sort of segues a little a few things actually i've mentioned segway into some other uh developments over the last few weeks um tiffany lvm patek philippe there's a lot going on so much how should we start well i think let's start the one that has uh that article um uh about the person that bought the uh phillips tiffany blue 5711 who i believe i've met andy oh so you think i think i got sent an old wrist shot um that was on instagram uh by by a friend and he's like hey did you did you do this i think i did i think it was watchers of wonders 2015 russian mill like dude was wearing a doll and i like was chatting and like hey can i grab a shot you know like a problem and whatever and which is kind of weird like you know it's it's kind of like i don't know meeting someone famous before you knew they were famous i don't know um but tell us what's going on here yeah right so another hodenki uh interview exclusive but the the title was mystery solved here's who bought that that tiffany blue patek 5711 at phillips so you know famously the the the number one that tiffany and patek put straight through to auction that sold for like 6.6.1 or 6.5 it doesn't really matter at this point and it's sort of an interview or it comes across as an interview i'm not sure if it was a press release or it was a light interview and some pictures of the watch and a bit of a uh insight into who the purchaser was and it's a guy named zach lew a 31 year old from california i think his instagram zac attack 25 or something like that so you would have seen him he's got every desirable piece you could imagine he didn't unboxing i think it's i imagine it's yeah he did the unboxing and then i think i didn't probably reach out for comment yeah so it was sort of the biggest flex i've i've seen ever uh it was paul bridges from phillips opening up the box and at first i thought i didn't my brain didn't didn't register who was opening the box i thought okay he's got one because it would make sense for this guy if you look at his collection to get this watch like if anyone's gonna get it it's it's you know a 31 year old mega collector and then it turned out it was the watch and it was sort of the story around how he got it and essentially what happened was the winning bidder disappeared or couldn't complete the transaction uh-huh that's very interesting let's talk about that in a minute yes and so lou was not the under-bidder he's sort of positioned as the under-bidder but he's not by definition the under-bidder he was he dropped out at 5 million which is a ridiculous amount but he ended up getting offered the watch for purchase yeah i think the full amount because i think i think they got um phillips and patek had together the other bidders and said who would be serious about this well i think at that point everyone was serious yeah they did that but they obviously had to approve it like apparently the other sort of tiffany 5711s and so he ended up paying the full the full the full yeah and yeah there's a charity element to it um but i found i found that interesting because who were the other people that that passed did they get offered did they get offer and pass or did they not get offered uh because if you're reading that and you were the underbelly you'd be like well why didn't i get offered so that's interesting are you and that makes me think they would have offered it to them but does this happen often i read it differently so i read it as they would have been concerned about the optics of letting it known that one person didn't like the a the winner flaked and me maybe under bitter one and under bitter two i don't know they might have been agents they might have been you know looking to profit they might from whatever patek or text point of view is they might not have been desirable and clients which they can say that we just yes i can and it's also kind of ridiculous to have that level of oversight at an open auction um yeah so i think this was like pr for or patek would have been very conscious about this massive news story then looking bad if someone they didn't want to own it or didn't look great for them so this guy was a safe choice yeah so for me this is the next chapter of a book i really don't like i really don't like um it makes me feel worse about the situation and just it just like you know i don't really care about tiffany as a brand i don't i still don't understand what they bring to this watch or to patek that's well established i'll say it you know a thousand times but there's some interesting quotes and it's very curated um and detailed and i should start by before we get into the quotes you said you me you met zach lou i think so i don't even know if this is his real name like i'm not convinced and if if i was him i wouldn't give my real name so grand assault zach lew it's also probably his his english name as well yeah exactly um but but there's so little detail there's like no detail around this this inky article is i think the first time his name appears anywhere on the internet um in relation to watches and there's no i've done a bit of background on it there's just nothing so i there's it's a bit of a mystery still like so it's not really mystery solved um but it's it's interesting and the comments on how dinky reflect uh a lot of the points within this very well uh curated response and and story that we've been we've been told uh and the first one is that you know he zack says i've known terry for 16 years i'm 31 i've been collecting since i was 15. so terry knows me very well sort of alluding to why he got offered the watch and why it was for him you've got to purchase history purchase history i mean tiffany apparently the ones who allocate the remaining 169 of these watches if you're a guy with 6 million plus i don't know how tiffany would not have offered you this watch or you wouldn't be able to surely you're in that that category to get it from tiffany that disgusts me that this guy's not like not eligible to even be considered by tiffany well i mean also i uh i don't know how long he's been in the states for like it's maybe he doesn't have a tiffany history yeah sure i mean you know yeah who's like maybe he's more of a cartier guy yeah yeah yeah whatever but and then the other obviously the other um interesting thing here is being you know collecting patek since he was 15 and so that uh that proved an unpopular comment um or remark in the comment section as well uh that's again this is not the world that we exist in andy we don't exist in this world it exists it exists and i think a lot of people and you're exactly right felix a lot of people don't like this like so we're talking about ed sheeran and everyone loved sort of him the glimmer that of the world that he gave this is a polar opposite in my opinion uh but another another sort of reasoning as to why he bought and he sort of gave his big justification i was like well i can't get i couldn't have gotten got it from a retailer sure uh so this was the only way it's unique there's a charity auction but he said he didn't want to push too hard this opens up a door for me in tiffany america and to tiffany patek i think this will be a beginning of an adventure and a long relationship with you know them with patek in the us it brings everything together just feels right to me that feels entirely wrong like you shouldn't have to do this to start a relationship of any sort and it's like it just seems like the worst motivation ever to buy a six million dollar watch uh honestly it probably just doesn't matter yeah it can't matter it just can't matter to him like it's it's you just buy something like why not like i'm sure uh i'm sure you know speaking of ed sheeran if he wanted to spend six million dollars on a watch he he could and not have to think about it like i mean maybe think about it a little bit but it's not yeah uh [Music] yeah it's it's a pretty wild story it's just like it's it's very wild and i'm grateful that it's out there and i understand it but it was yeah i guess i put my my view on it would have been just go spend a ton of money at tiffany and you'll get there in probably a third of the money or a million dollars would probably push one it's not the cool one yeah and is it even a cool watch that's the other thing well it's also not the only uh tiffany nautilus that's been making turn around uh making it on the gram recently yeah there's been another one another a unique uh nautilus 5740 which is the perpetual calendar with a tiffany dial huh this is the one posted with the chess set yeah but it's it's what makes it fascinating was that who was posting it uh so it was frederick i know's uh instagram account who's uh you know the the son of mr fredrick frederick county's instagram account or something again i don't know one of them i'm looking it up now uh yeah fredericano who is the ceo of tag heuer he was having playing game of chess with his dad third richest man in the world and uh little little shot of the of the watch um which i find fascinating for so many reasons one why post it like talking about you know optics is one thing so if it's just a subtle flex i think that's a weird move but again you probably don't care um if you're the third richest man in the world uh or is there more at stake here is is this part of uh as a quill and pad article that we will maybe maybe reference uh talked about is this part of a bigger game of chess corporate chess succession style chess where lvmh is in talks to buy patek philippe that's interesting felix i mean and the chess set he's weirdly enough the other day um terry stern had a game uh picture on his instagram of him playing checkers i know his chestnut checkers oh they're playing different games it is yeah so obviously the optics are interesting why even post it you know what i mean like it's it's obvious it's got to be it's going to be some sort of hint or statement or it's i mean it's very deliberate to be fair frederick and i was like 25 um yeah so not afraid of the old social socials it's a very big flex it's very very peculiar uh but i wouldn't be surprised i mean i it's i think it's been pretty public or you know sort of open insider knowledge that lvmh has been interested in patek and i think talked about it seriously in the past because that's the only like that would put them in proper competition with like richmond swatch it's massive it would be massive for them i mean it's such a big by revenue company isn't patek's probably one of the top definitely top five by revenue which is you know considering the volume of watches they make it's just an incredible price point uh there are those rumors going around the internet that terry's sort of going through a divorce it's been a couple of years now so he might be in a position where he does need to sell um or even that i mean like uh are his children interested in running the family business or yeah yeah you know like i mean at some point he might want to tap out and if he can sell you know patek for late for a couple of billion dollars because that's you would be talking somewhere in that realm i imagine oh definitely i mean if tiffany's 16 bill yes at least i i would say that patek has more brand value than tiffany i could be wrong with that 100 yeah 100 so it's he might just want to retire he might just want to check out uh which is totally fair and who are you going to sell to at that point there's only a couple of groups that would would be able to facilitate that sort of transaction and have that proven history of you know shepherding a blue chip luxury brand yeah i think it's it's the only you know the only obvious choice but uh there's more andy there's more there's more we've talked about a quill and pad article but that wasn't that wasn't about um lvmh and pp though they were talked about the main one here is the news that uh the caring the caring group the owns gucci and a bunch of other mostly fashion brands is divesting their uh their sort of high-end watch brands which are namely azura perigo and ulis nadine that were part of the so wind group that caring acquired in 2011 yep so they're being sold to management um so what does that mean well patrick prenaut uh who is the ceo of both i think he's ex he worked at apple i think if i'm if i'm getting him right i could be confusing him with someone else um so he's a you know been in the industry a long time knows his stuff so he will have put together some some money monosomes and you know senior management will be taking equity in in these two brands fascinating that's kind of cool i'm into that yeah i think it's a so the you know i can understand why caring uh getting rid of them because they're probably like yeah as this article and quiller pad says you know they've had some hits like gucci's gucci's taking some hits and some of their other brands of you know being stressed so this is a you know not their core business and a great way to you know free up some cash at the same time um but i don't know if they've got the without the backing of that sort of major muscle i don't know if these brands are strong enough on their own to really thrive oh definitely not they'll definitely they'll need to strip things back go back to basic and that might be what they want to do they might just say we need to go back and focus and almost operate like two independents side by side well that's it i mean they will like they've got facilities they've got they've i mean they're but you know i'm saying like independent good independence like i don't know they can well i mean i don't think there's enough strength there like they had silicon patterns they had them but they're now i think in you know they sort of shared those patterns with uh you know patek and other brands i think they've expired now um okay they've got dial manufacturing and don zach drowns it's that's quite well regarded does a lot of you know high-end work for other brands that will probably be fine but i mean gp's the laureato and ulis nadine is big in uh you know sort of the east like the russia and the the you know the stands broadly speaking in that sort of middle eastern area uh which is is a tricky part of the world to be selling high-end luxury watches to at the moment so i don't know man that's me neither i've i've said it before like you know uh there's a lot of luxury brands and i don't know if we're gonna be they're all gonna be around for too long yeah it got very crowded this i just want to make the note phillies this episode has gotten a little warm this has gotten hot it's not that i mean you know i think this is you can't be so gung-ho as to go okay there's a you know major multinational has ditched two brands that's good news for everyone um i i hope they sound like because the loreals just seems to be picking up heat bloody you know our mate uh and former interviewee asha rapton keeps hyping them um maybe who knows we should ask him not so silent uh but i i don't know if the the cool factors you know i don't know if there's enough there to sort of keep them into that status that they're at yeah it's it's going to be interesting to say hey alan wanted some more news the uh the royal oak 10 50. cool mint oh hey speaking of anniversaries before i forget do you know what else happened five years ago in a couple of months what's that paul newman's paul newman was auctioned five years i know man oh god where were you where were you when that was sold that's makes me feel old in in the watch world uh could we point to that event as the beginning of the end of a particular era of watch collecting where everything became over commodified and that was really zachary lou started building up equity that was really sort of the main like when watch auctions went mainstream wasn't it like properly mainstream like in terms of coverage like every news cup you know center was covering it yeah uh maybe oral backs is the villain maybe he is this whole time anyway back to the royal oak before we get sued a lot of people just do us this episode uh so certified icon at this point 50 uh i don't really love where this royal egg size is currently at but we have seen some sort of new 37 millimeter models feel like i think it's a new reference one five five five zero um one in particular with a lovely kind of icy blue doll i don't know i like the gold i like the solid gold boy with the sort of like the fumay on the edges that like looks like that potato tropical vibe that is very cool i mean i look at him i'm at the point in my life and in my watch collecting where you know an ap at retail would be achievable if it was available yeah and that's so sad for me because it was a watch i always the royal locals i always really liked but you know just money and life and you know i was a young boy when i got into this hobby it wasn't 15. probably around 20. and it's just that this brand i mean it's just become so impossible i mean i've got good watch plugs and i cannot for the life of me i mean i haven't really tried but i don't think i could get one um which is a little bit sad just uh change change the discourse yeah yeah but i mean i think so we could we could talk we could spend another 40 minutes talking about all the new releases but honestly there's websites you can do that uh yeah let's get into it the other yeah this this you love miss tweed felix astrid ventil vinslat something like that should be a great guest yeah we should reach out and you know get some straight sauce you know you know share this rumor that we've been seeing fly around okay sure yeah the rumor is that uh ap is in the market for a new uh uh head honcho ceo yeah so direct should we apply uh yeah we could be joint ceos like exactly like succession oh my god no man i think we've worked out who i am yeah so miss tweed if you run across the website uh remarkable website but it's you know they reported that i think headhunters in france or europe have been given the brief to find a really really top-tier watch industry ceo um sort of saying that the current ceo uh benahamas benny helmets has been uh at ap for 25 years which is remarkable yeah it might be time for him to to move on maybe he's just done maybe he's retiring uh he's had an amazing career though so other thing they might be doing and that this is a uh it could um i don't know enough about law it could like just be like a contractual thing like they have to review options every every so often to uh you know just see how much he's worth and all that sort of jazz yeah it could be doing some sort of market tests but he was the north american sort of head of market wasn't he yeah that's where he he sort of cut his teeth with ap i think and he he would have been responsible for one of my favorite um parties no one of my favorite ap color labs ever with insync oh yes he would have been i was going to say parties so one of my favorite things to do is look at old photos of him at events with like jc jay-z yeah with you on carter and just the the suits and the i mean he's he's had a glow up he's had an absolute blob so many pinstripes so many pinstripes really like rectangular frame glasses it's just so fascinating i just wish i was around you know i was in new york at that time and in watches that i just it would have been a completely different time for watches and watch events it would have been amazing thank god for getty archives oh yeah i mean getty images thank you um definitely definitely won't link those because we'll have to pay for them but google google the images and and take a look at it but yeah nsync i mean what what a great time that's that's a different chat feeling and i think that's a it's you know he's probably the person most responsible for the direction like they were already back then doing movie collabs like with end of days they were you know they were working with all these sort of like quite for the swiss watch industry like yeah bold artists so that's it's been a pretty clear trajectory since since that is he's changed the industry through i mean massively through co-labs yeah underrated maybe an underrated ceo um we need to bring it back home yeah we need to um two things one massive shout out to dave chalmers for uh who recently yes um our our friend uh yes former colleague and the founder of one of tagoy's best websites called calibre 11 which is uh i think called it a day yes put a pin in it put a fork in it yeah which i mean it makes sense like it was sort of a work of passion that yeah you know he's dave's dave's got other jobs and full-time thing and he's been doing a long time so 10 years i think longer longer 12 maybe 12 or something yeah he did really kind of frankie he was he was one of the first um digital like bloggers at basel yeah right like they didn't know what to do with him that sort of you know new category on the on the accreditation badge sort of thing um the lesser known man behind time and tide the probably the reason it really eventuated yeah yeah momentum yeah yeah so well done dave chalmers hope you're listening to this and let's get a let's get a drink sometime soon we could talk about that naomi osaka yes so felix australian ocean's happening here in melbourne as you know it might be probably be done by the time this comes out uh but tagoya did announce their sort of partnership with naomi osaka and the new watch they've sort of dropped um i think it's renewed right like it was last year and then this year they've got a new watch um so it's a minty green aqua racer beautiful limited edition yep stunning really cool minty dial really nice diamonds on there as well it's got everything that i i like just sort of thrown in there uh and sort of interestingly people like well i think there's an ad campaign where she's wearing the connected watch and everyone's saying why couldn't she wear that on the field because obviously some stuff it's a fitness device you know they've got you know but it's also a communication device and that would be in breach of the rules someone could give her coaching through that watch true so that's why she wasn't wearing it yeah i also read a fascination listen to a um fascinating 99 invisible podcast on that uh communicating in baseball but that's a very different matter i'll talk about it later uh aqua races yes not only that has naomi osaka got a new aqua racer everyone does yeah the aqua racer 200 has been announced as part of the sort of lvmh watch week shenanigans uh we've seen it and it's a i think this is us of the follow-up to last year's the professional 300 so this is yeah i think you know that's a pretty chunky 43 millimeter diver you know we've both played with them this is sort of the more uh cut down version and i think it really hits some nice places for me yeah so there's you know obviously it's 40 millimeters this time four thousand forty one eight or forty i gotta recall the two hundred is the date two hundred eight is forty millimeters at 4 000 aussie dollars felix solid very solid and there's other like smaller sizes but that are sort of uh due to like the diamond dials and the mother of pearl geared more at women but i think you know you could find some some great choices there for guys i just think it's a really solid offering like the courts have no date it's you know there's polish center links on the on the uh the bracelets there's nice few may sort of dial patterns they've got that garage door style the dial markers have been sort of cleaned up like the yeah as as per the last years on the 300s it's just a solid it's just a like tag hoi has always sort of seen that good first watch and this i think very much does that like if you want a sporty outdoorsy nice looking watch yeah it's great three years ago versus today leaps and bounds incredible yeah i think it's it's got quite a strong visual identity on its own like yes it's got a shape bezel and it's got lines and it could you know poke sticks at it for looking like you know royal oaks or nautiluses or whatever but i don't think i think it does its own thing um it's not a boring round dive watch no and it i mean on that note i find it really interesting and i just said so three years to now is it because the group as a whole is doing less you know or that there's there's more attention on tahoe because it was sort of they were doing stuff but so was zenith and so was hublot and there was so much happening and thank you there still is but i feel like there's a bit more refinement with what tahoe is doing especially over these last couple of years and i'm here for it i think it's probably stuff that they were implementing that and we're now seeing that's the market like the pipelines are you know like i'm sure yeah you can push something out quickly but this sort of strategic overview takes a couple of years at least uh and i just think we're seeing the result of that now like they've sort of yeah they've streamlined they've consolidated they've cleaned up their collections a bit like it makes sense like this sure there's a lot of watches but like the automatics have the smokey dials courts have no date there's you know it's a it's a pretty cohesion there yeah it's nice um i think they're really good i'm i can't wait to see them irl um yeah i've gotta gonna send an email tomorrow and get some sent out oh yeah cool yeah definitely yeah hands on nice nice nice hey uh we've been waffling on a bit we should probably uh wrap this up let's do it uh thank you adam straps for supporting this week's episode if you would like to email us with your rumors gossip or sponsorship deals other podcast gmail.com if you think you'd like a great ap ceo yes no we'll pass it on we will we'll pass it on uh if you want to hit us up on instagram ot.podcast and obviously felix we've not talked about it yet but join our discord it's where a little fun banter happens i mean to be honest that's where um that's what we're hearing because all the ceos are there they all chat there's a separate channel it's called swiss watch ceos um it might or might not be in there yeah ben's in there he's telling us about his plans george kern he's you know talking about you know pilot watchers i mean patrick bruno he's he's asking us what we think the next iterations of the l'oreal should look like it's it's all happening i mean we are we are the illuminati illuminati all right and if you like ot subscribe tell your friends leave a five star review post an instagram story and we will see you next week