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The Swiss watchmaker Richemont has destroyed nearly €500m (£437m) of its designer timepieces over the past two years to avoid them being sold at knockdown prices. The Geneva-based luxury goods group behind Cartier and Montblanc said it bought back €203m of unsold watches last year That was on top of the €278m of Cartier watches, which start at £1,000 but can cost more than £20,000, it reclaimed from jewellers in 2017. When the Richemont chief executive, Richard Lepeu, who retired last year, initiated the policy in 2016, he described it as an “exceptional measure†in “exceptional circumstancesâ€. The company took action after stocks of its wristwatches began building up in display cabinets in Asian markets amid a crackdown on corruption in China, where luxury products such as watches and whisky had been dished out as lavish gifts to curry favour with officials, as well as a wider sales slowdown It was worried that. Source