The Gardner Museum Meets Audemars Piguet... Sorta'

"Four guys walk into the Audemars Piguet Boutique..."

No, gentle reader, this is not the start of a joke.

Yesterday afternoon four people entered the Boston Audemars Piguet Boutique on Boylston Street, one allegedly (per some news reports) with a gun, the others additionally armed with sledgehammers and proceeded to smash the display cases before making off with at least one (according to a security staff member) if not more APs. Thankfully, nobody was physically hurt.

James Cullity News 

@JCullityNews

And here's where it gets interesting. For those of you unfamiliar, that portion of Boylston street is one-way, at times divided into two separate sections, littered with traffic lights, a bike lane and a lot of absent minded tourists and locals with a propensity for crossing the street without really paying attention. Long story short, traffic there is a bitch. While there are boutiques, shops, and hotels on one side of the street, the other side is the Public Garden and Boston Common, rife with tourists this time of year. 

James Cullity News 

@JCullityNews

Three suspects were arrested when their car was stopped a little less than 2 blocks from the crime scene. The fourth was the driver of one of the cars who fled on foot, heading away from Boylston towards Stuart Street. He is still, to use the parlance, at large. One AP watch apparently in the box (if anyone can explain that one to me, I am all ears) was recovered from one of the cars.

While AP is name-checked in several songs from Beyonce's Upgrade U to Lil Wayne's “Marvin’s Room (Freestyle)”, it is perhaps ironic that the haul probably would not have netted as much as the robbers would have hoped for, both monetarily and status wise. As Royal Oaks are pretty thin on the ground, it is likely that the watches taken were from the less sexy, less desirable collections. The robbers can thank outgoing CEO François-Henry Bennahmias for that last bit of ironic insult to injury. Maybe it was a good thing that he essentially made AP solely about the Royal Oak, and conveniently those are pretty much never available. Looking to offload a Code 11:59? Bonne chance...

Now to be clear, I do not intend to make light of the trauma that the staff at the AP boutique experienced, thankfully nobody was hurt. And moreover, full marks to the Boston PD, that was quite a collar in record time. But in a city where over three decades later, they still haven't solved the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the AP Boutique Caper of 2023 seems more of a misadventure than anything else, and underscores that while there are several movies with successful heists and car getaways set in downtown Boston, they are just that - movies. 

The Transfer Window Will Apparently Open

At Audemars Piguet...

If anything could completely eclipse the news of the management buyout of GP/UN from Kering in the collective consciousness of Watch Town, it was the news put forward by Miss Tweed regarding the rumored potential departure of the current CEO of Audemars Piguet, François-Henry Bennahmias. 

While it is safe to say that nothing lasts forever, the news of a potential, semi-imminent departure of a CEO without a clearly defined succession plan actually raises far more questions than it answers. Miss Tweed's article indicated that an outside (located outside of Switzerland) search firm might be used to try and find the right person to take over. It was also hinted that there would be no small amount of jockeying for position internally. In other words, to paraphrase - there is chaos under heaven, and the situation is excellent!

Now, with all due respect to the brand, and Mr. Bennahmias's achievements, the one key question it begs is the one nobody seems to be asking - Why now?

If I have understood correctly he is still pretty young. It also seems somewhat odd that there appears to be no clear succession plan in place. If you're planning on leaving, wouldn't you have identified some folks with the talent and temperament to take over? Moreover, a succession plan is (even at a neighborhood 7-Eleven) a fairly standard business practice in the infamous "In case I get hit by a bus..." scenario. It would not be unreasonable to assume that in the 10 years or so he has been in charge, he might have identified a few people to mentor. Which again begs the question - why an outside search firm?  Audemars Piguet has more than enough money, resources and people to have developed several reasonable options in the past 10 years. The real question is, did they?

Not a sausage from Le Brassus where one outlet reported that their request for comment received a summary no comment, other than that AP "would not comment on rumors".

So we shall wait, and we shall see...