Breitling

Léon Breitling, born in 1860, founded the company in Saint-Imier in 1884, making chronographs, counters and precision timers for sport, science and industry. In 1892 he moved to larger premises in La Chaux-de-Fonds as the Léon G. Breitling S.A. Montbrillant Watch Manufactory. When he died in 1914 the business passed to his son Gaston, under whom the firm introduced, in 1915, the first independent push-piece for wrist chronographs.

Gaston's son Willy took over in 1935. The year before, a second push-piece for resetting had given the wrist chronograph its modern two-button form. Breitling's chronographs became closely tied to aviation: cockpit chronographs from the 1930s, the Chronomat with a circular slide rule in 1942, and the Navitimer, named for navigation and timer, whose bezel slide rule could perform the calculations of air navigation. In 1962 Scott Carpenter wore a 24-hour Navitimer on his Mercury space flight, and in 1969 Breitling, with Heuer, Hamilton and Dubois-Dépraz, presented one of the first self-winding chronograph movements.

With no family successor and a difficult market, Willy Breitling closed the La Chaux-de-Fonds factory in 1978 and died in 1979. Ernest Schneider, owner of Sicura in Grenchen, bought the name in 1979 and moved production there. His relaunch of the mechanical Chronomat in 1984 is credited by French Wikipedia with helping to revive the mechanical chronograph, and in 2009 Breitling introduced the B01, its first in-house self-winding chronograph movement.

The Schneider family sold 80% to CVC Capital Partners in 2017 and the remaining 20% in 2018. Georges Kern, previously head of IWC, became chief executive in 2017 and led what Hodinkee calls one of the most dramatic turnarounds in modern watchmaking.

Partners Group took majority control in December 2022. Under Kern the company built a wider group that bought Universal Genève in 2023 and Gallet in 2025, and in 2026 he became chief executive of that "House of Brands".

Jean-Marc Pontroué, formerly chief executive of Panerai and Roger Dubuis, took over as Breitling's chief executive on 1 May 2026. The company remains based in Grenchen.