Bremont founders Nick and Giles English have given up their seats on the board of the company created almost two years after the company’s majority shareholder, billionaire investor Bill Ackman hire Davide Cerrato as its the watchmaker’s CEO.
The brothers had held non-executive directors’ roles since the change of leadership, but the company confirmed to WatchPro yesterday that they would not be retained after Mr Ackman increased his investment to become a majority shareholder on April 1 and instigated a major boardroom restructuring.
“Following the announcement on April 1 2025 outlining Bill Ackman becoming chairman and majority shareholder of Bremont, Mr Ackman has created a new board construct to continue to drive business growth and enhance with even more watchmaking knowledge. Both Nick and Giles English remain Bremont brand ambassadors,” a Bremont spokesperson outlines.
Giles and Nick English have moved from watches into the luxury writing instrument market, becoming the new “custodians” of heritage pen-maker Yard-O-Led (founded in Birmingham in 1822).
In a flurry of notifications from Companies House yesterday, the exit of three Bremont directors was confirmed and four appointed, including Mr Ackman, who says the British watchmaker is a personal investment rather than a holding through his New York-based firm Pershing Square Capital Management.
Control of the company is now in the hands of Bremont Long Term Trust (BLTT Bidco Limited) which owns 63% of the company under the new structure.
Mr Ackman and David Berkowitz, a long-standing associate of the investor who is currently chief investment officer at Riverpark Capital Management, are the only named individuals in the BLTT articles of association.
Mr Berkowitz and Mr Ackman were both graduates of Harvard Business School and co-founded Gotham Partners in 1992.
Mr Berkowitz has also been appointed the Bremont board.
Mr Ackman pays tribute to the achievements of the English brothers in a lengthy post on X describing why he invested in Bremont and his belief in its future potential.
“To date, I have been a passive investor in @Bremont, but perhaps the activist in me caused me to step forward, to recently seize the opportunity to materially increase my investment in the company, and become the non-executive chairman of a newly refreshed board,” Mr Ackman describes.
“Prior to my investment in the company, Nick and Giles had taken Bremont to a reasonable scale for an independently owned watch company at about £21 million in revenues with a modest operating loss, which is an incredible accomplishment for two young men with no watch industry experience,” he continues.
“Nick and Giles accomplishment is particularly significant in an extremely competitive industry characterized by well capitalized incumbents that control many of the top brands, e.g., Richemont, Swatch, LVMH, as well dominant, independently owned companies like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and a few others.
“Bremont has a unique brand story and heritage, particularly for a 23-year-old company, with two decades of credibility in war zones and air combat missions with the best war fighters and military pilots in the world.
“Bremont also makes a limited number of watches, around 10,000 per year, compared with more than 1.2 million for Rolex and 70,000 for Patek Philippe, and scarcity drives value in luxury goods.
“The combination of battlefield credibility, rarity, quality and a fair price make Bremont an extremely attractive alternative to the typical Rolex or Patek, which everyone seems to be wearing in my industry, a ubiquity in my view that loses its luster over time,” Mr Ackman concludes.