Does Rolex own Tudor? Complete Guide
Does Rolex own Tudor? The short answer to that is yes. Rolex owns Tudor. And the relationship between the two brands has been very close since the birth of Tudor.
In this article, we’ll have a closer look at Rolex and Tudor’s relationship.
Rolex and Tudor’s relationship history.
Rolex was founded by Hans Wilsdorf in 1905 in London, United Kingdom. After two decades, Wilsdorf saw a gap in the market that Rolex didn’t fill. He said the now-famous quote:
“For some years now, I have been considering the idea of making a watch that our agents could sell at a more modest price than our Rolex watches, and yet one that would attain the standard of dependability for which Rolex is famous. I decided to form a separate company, with the object of making and marketing this new watch. It is called the TUDOR watch company.” – H. Wilsdorf
This clearly describes Wilsdorf’s idea with the Tudor watch brand and that he envisioned it as a complement to the Rolex brand due to a lower price point. But of course, without compromising on the quality.
A watch dealer and maker by the name of “Veuve de Philippe Hüther” registered the trademark “The Tudor” for Hans Wilsdorf in February 1926. On 15 October 1936, the brand “The Tudor” was transferred to Hans Wilsdorf. this, Wilsdorf acquired the exclusive usage rights for the Tudor name.
The idea of Tudor was that Rolex would use its already established reputation and prestige of the technical and aesthetic quality of TUDOR watches. At least up until Tudor had built a brand for itself.
An important date for the history of the Tudor brand is the 6th of March 1946. At this point, according to Tudor, “Hans Wilsdorf knew that the time had come to expand and give the brand a proper identity of its own”. This led to the creation of establishing Tudor as a company separate from Rolex. Wilsdorf created “Montres TUDOR S.A.”.
Tudor today – does Rolex own it?
Following the death of Hans Wilsdorf’s wife, Wilsdorf established the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. When he died in 1960, he gave his 100% ownership stake of Rolex to the foundation. But what a lot of people don’t discuss is that Wilsdorf also gave his ownership stake in Tudor to the foundation as well.
To this very day, Tudor remains a sister company to Rolex So today, both Tudor and Rolex are owned and managed by the Hans Wilsdorf trust foundation. You could therefore say that Rolex owns Tudor.
