Collectors Call It Heritage. Bankers Call It Roll-Up.

The heritage you consume was not inherited. It was engineered.

In 1997, the Vendôme Group — the luxury arm of what is now Richemont — acquired a small Florentine company called Officine Panerai for approximately one million dollars. The purchase price alone tells you everything you need to know about what Panerai was at the moment of acquisition. It was not a luxury brand. It was not, in any meaningful commercial s…