Evan Zimmermann is an American businessman, investor and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of

Antiquorum Antiquorum is an auctioneer of modern and vintage timepieces. Established in Geneva in 1974, Antiquorum was the first auction house to auction fine watches over the Internet in the 1990s. The company was founded in Geneva in 1974 by Osvaldo Patri ...

, a Swiss

auction house An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

, established in 1974, that specializes in

watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...

es.Antiquorum
source: www.antiquorum.com

Career

Zimmermann is known for developing and implementing brand growth strategies. In 2008, he purchased Antiquorum, an international

based in Switzerland, in a $30 million deal. He subsequently strengthened the company's principal expertise streamlining the company's irrelevant business lines and finances. Over the next 10 years, the company experienced growth in its auction sales from $37 million to $90 million. Zimmermann was instrumental in solidifying Antiquorum's position as the largest watch auction house in the world. Under his management, Antiquorum sold

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

's pocket watch for just under $2.1 million,

Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...

Rolex Submariner The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner is a line of sports watches designed for diving and manufactured by Rolex, resistant to water and corrosion. The first Submariner was introduced to the public in 1954 at the Basel Watch Fair. It was the fir ...

for $234,000 (more than 20 times its estimate), setting a new world record for its reference, and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

Longines Compagnie des Montres Longines, Francillon S.A., or simply Longines (), is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. Founded by Auguste Agassiz in 1832, the company has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Swatch Group and its predec ...

wristwatch for $596,000 (over 2000 percent of its estimate). In February 2014 Zimmermann expressed his delight about the fervent participation of Asian clients in a Hong Kong auction of a Platinum Patek watch which sold for $800,000. In 2018, after an initial minority investment in the company's European operations, FIDES Business Partner, a private equity firm based in Zurich, Switzerland, bought Antiquorum from Zimmermann for $154 million. Zimmermann's significant investment in December 2018 in

Moderna Moderna, Inc. ( ) is an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines. These vaccines use a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produ ...

, one of the first COVID-19 vaccines approved by FDC, paid off at the end of 2020 with share price increases of 250%. Zimmermann has been recognized by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' as an important collector of vintage

Rolex watches Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...

and as one of the major investors in fashion industry startups. He developed an interest in the fashion industry through his family brand Zimmermann, and has made investments in numerous companies, including

Farfetch Farfetch is a British-Portuguese online luxury fashion retail platform that sells products from over 700 boutiques and brands from around the world. The company was founded in 2007 by the Portuguese entrepreneur José Neves with its headquarters ...

Rent the Runway Rent the Runway is an e-commerce platform that allows users to rent, subscribe, or buy designer apparel and accessories. It was founded by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, who launched the company in November 2009. History In 2007, Hyman ...

, and Glossier. EvanZimmermann CBS

Following the sale of Antiquorum, Zimmerman visited 13 Asian countries and took time out to refocus.

Philanthropy

In 2021, Zimmermann, through his foundation Zimmermann Family Charitable Trust, donated $3 million to

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

to back initiatives focused on the causes and consequences of the Holocaust and the study of human rights, protection of minority rights and reparations for historical wrongs and injustices.

References

External links

* {{Facebook, id=ievan, name= Evan Zimmermann Living people Swiss businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century Swiss businesspeople 21st-century Swiss businesspeople American businesspeople American investors American people of Swiss descent