The former Audemars Piguet chief secures CHF 30 million to launch a brand built around redistributing credit and profit to its artisans
François-Henri Bennahmias, the former chief executive of Audemars Piguet, has unveiled N3W5, a new luxury Swiss watch brand built on a profit-sharing model that credits the artisans and manufacturers behind each piece. The label marks the third venture under Bennahmias’ Honourable Merchants Group, following the 2025 launches of asset management company Avalon and cycling brand Viiala, and represents his formal return to watchmaking after a decade steering Audemars Piguet through its most commercially aggressive era.
The brand, pronounced “news” and named for the four cardinal points, arrives with CHF 30 million in private investment from undisclosed backers. Mechanical watches will start at CHF 20,000, with higher pieces reaching roughly CHF 60,000, positioning N3W5 within reach of AP’s own entry tier while avoiding direct competition with the manufacture Bennahmias once ran. Before settling on an independent build, he pursued a deal to acquire De Bethune and held talks with two other independent watchmakers, all of which fell through, pushing him toward assembling a collective of specialists rather than buying an existing house.
That collective is the project’s organizing idea. N3W5 will debut two collections, one round and one cushion-cased, powered by dedicated in-house calibers, with a second collection slated for 2028 and a launch planned for Dubai Watch Week 2027. The roster spans enamelist Anita Porchet, known for her work with Patek Philippe and Hermès, alongside guilloché artisan Yann von Kaenel, engravers Pierre-Alain Lozeron and Kevin Vatteau, designers Xavier Casals, Dalibor Klas and Sébastien Perret, and case, dial and movement specialists including Biwi, LM Cadrans and TimeForge. Bennahmias has structured the venture so profits are shared across that network rather than concentrated at the top, a framework he described to Business of Fashion by saying he wants to reward everyone involved in the entire ecosystem of value creation.
The approach reads as a pointed contrast to the industry Bennahmias helped shape at Audemars Piguet, where he built the Royal Oak into a globally coveted status object through celebrity partnerships and cultural crossovers. N3W5 instead foregrounds the invisible labor behind the object, a positioning that fits neatly within Honourable Merchants Group’s broader thesis of redistributing value across a brand’s full supply chain. Whether that philosophy translates into commercial traction against an already crowded field of independent watchmakers will depend on execution once the first pieces reach Dubai Watch Week, but the model itself signals where Bennahmias believes the next generation of luxury credibility will be built.