The Fourth Wheel, Issue 95

Only Watch: The Route To Rehabilitation. Is the charity auction ready to return?

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that, I guess, had better find something to say about the MoonSnoopy / SnoopySwatch. It’s all white. I mean, it’s all right. GQ said it ‘defies our highest expectations’ which I think is meant to be a compliment, but perhaps says more than intended about how mediocre our expectations might have been. There’s one on eBay for two and a half grand, at the time of writing, so clearly the hype is alive and well. Anyway, my eye has been elsewhere this week; Only Watch is on the way back and its not messing around. Let’s get into it.

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The Fourth Wheel is a reader-supported publication with no advertising, sponsorship or commercial partnerships to influence its content. It is made possible by the generous support of its readers: if you think watch journalism could do with a voice that exists outside of the usual media dynamic, please consider taking out a paid subscription. You can start with a free trial!

Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:

Roger Smith on British Watchmaking
Is Parmigiani Up For Sale? Who Would Buy It?
Issue 91: AMA Extended Bonus edition
Where Are All The Risk-Takers?
What Was The Greatest Era Of Chronograph Watchmaking?

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Before we start… do you want to hear from a talented specialist in restoring watches? And a former head of the Old Royal Observatory? And eat at Yauatcha City AND have a whisky tasting? Do you want to do all of these things on the evening of March 27th? Well the good news is you CAN, and at a reduced price exclusive to Fourth Wheel readers. Get your tickets at the link.

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At the start of this week, two interviews were published on WorldTempus: one with Only Watch founder Luc Pettavino, the other with his daughter Tess, who works as a director at AMM, the charitable association that funds research into treatment and potential cures for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy among other diseases.

These are the first public statements from the Pettavinos since the Only Watch furore exploded last October, and WorldTempus wasted no time letting us know where it stands, running Luc’s interview under the headline ‘Only Watch Wipes The Slate Clean’. This is the same WorldTempus that, as the controversy roiled high, simply ran Luc Pettavino’s letter to the community under the headline ‘Luc Pettavino Puts The Record Straight’¹ with no attempt to interrogate his claims or express independent scrutiny. So forgive me for wondering… is the slate really wiped clean?

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Remind yourself, if you need to, how this all played out:

The Fourth Wheel, Issue 72

The Fourth Wheel, Issue 73

The Fourth Wheel, Issue 74

The Fourth Wheel, Issue 75

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Reading the two articles, it’s unsurprising Only Watch chose WorldTempus to break cover, as the softest of soft-soap treatments was dispensed. For reasons that will become obvious, I want to be very clear about why I’m going back into this in such detail. It’s not because I don’t trust Only Watch, specifically, or bear it any ill will. But when an organisation has endured a storm of public criticism over a lack of transparency and promised to make changes, when the time comes to update your readers on the situation, you don’t just take their word for it that everything’s fine.

WorldTempus (Brice Lechevalier) What does this audit report conclude?

Luc Pettavino: The auditors’ report certifies the financial statements for the last three years and states that the financial situation we have presented is true and fair, as well as the fact that it is in accordance with our purpose and the standards which we are subject to. It also certifies that the association's funds are used in accordance with its purpose. 

That is as tough as the interview gets. We quickly move on to hard-hitting issues such as ‘has the colour scheme of the auction changed?’.

There are so many questions raised by Luc’s interview (Tess’s is quite uninteresting, at least as regards any update to the story as we left it in October). Before we even get to them, I should mention that Only Watch published audited accounts for 2021, 2022 and 2023 on the 18th March. Judging by the total lack of coverage², I don’t think anyone noticed these slip out - and somehow WorldTempus failed to mention it. They include new financial information that was not previously available; at first glance there isn’t anything wildly controversial within it, but that’s not the point. Everyone got very excited about the Only Watch story last year, with pretty much every watch media website eventually jumping on it, but the lack of sustained interest speaks volumes.

The accounts for 2023 show that AMM spent just under €9.85m in the year; €9.2m of which was given to the medical research projects and biotech companies it funds, with the remainder attributed to operational expenses/operating costs of Only Watch/ AMM. Operating costs increased significantly year-on-year, from roughly €100,000 to more than €570,000 - but 2022 was a year without a sale; obviously so was 2023, in the end, but we can assume plenty of the work for the auction was already done. Compared with 2021, the last year a sale took place, Only Watch/AMM’s operating expenses rose from €292,000 to €570,000. The open letter shared with the world in October 2023 did say that as a result of the changes the organisation would be making, “As a result, the charity’s functioning expenses will necessarily increase beyond the current 1 to 2%,” but I’m surprised to see costs jump so much. The financial documents only explain so much; for example there are €85,000 of ‘general management fees’ added in 2023 that previously did not exist, but we can’t infer anything from this alone. Besides, the world has become a more expensive place since 2021.

Of the research spending, the vast majority went to SQY Therapeutics (€7.7m); there was nothing different about this or the other amounts spent on research from the previous two years.

There is one interesting note in the 2023 Expenditure Analysis that brings things back to the world of watches. It explains that:

The proceeds from the sale donated by the CHRISTIES company are recorded in revenue figures while donations are recognized as operating income excluding turnover;

The 2023 accounts have the following particularities:

The sale initially planned for November 2023 was postponed to 2024. Watches had been donated to the AMM. These watches have not been valued but are temporarily under the responsibility of AMM. The valuation of these watches temporarily held by AMM is not recorded in stock because the donation is not legally definitive. The amount of watches under the responsibility of AMM as of December 31, 2023 is €5,303,601³.

So, now we know the ‘cost’ value of the total Only Watch sale catalogue. I find this note interesting because since the sale was postponed, speculation has been rife as to what would happen to the watches themselves. Several have been seen at press events hosted by various participating brands, and I had assumed the brands retained ownership of them - but this would imply otherwise. They must be on loan from AMM. It also raises the possibility that AMM possesses the Patek Philippe contribution, a watch (or clock) yet to actually be seen publicly. Whether or not AP has got its watch back, we are none the wiser.

It isn’t specifically addressed in Luc’s interview, but the impression given is that with the audit documents having been sent to the brands, Only Watch is waiting to hear that they wish to go ahead with a sale in May. I emailed Only Watch’s spokesperson Matthieu Chauzy with a number of questions, and he said that:

“Following the postponement of the auction scheduled for 2023, each brand was able, if it so wished, to recover the watch it had created for the occasion while awaiting the sharing of developments in the association, audits and the programming of the new Only Watch date. We are currently talking to each of them to prepare the next edition, with the objective of holding it in Spring 2024.”