In 2005 Maximilian Büsser resigned from Harry Winston to found MB&F, a company that treats a watch as a machine and makes each one with friends.
How it began
Büsser earned a Master’s degree in Micro-Technology Engineering in Lausanne. His first employer was Jaeger-LeCoultre, where he spent seven years in senior management.
In 1998, aged 31, he became managing director of Harry Winston Rare Timepieces. Over seven years there he worked with independent watchmakers on the Opus series, and that work planted the seed of what came next.
In 2005 he resigned to give his creativity and energy free rein, and formed MB&F. The initials stand for Maximilian Büsser & Friends. Because of that F, the brand says, it works with artists, watchmakers, designers and manufacturers it admires.
Machines, not watches
In 2007 MB&F introduced its first Horological Machine, HM1. It had a sculpted, three-dimensional case and a finished movement that the brand calls the engine. MB&F describes these as machines that tell the time, rather than machines to tell the time.
Later Horological Machines took their themes from space and science fiction, aviation, supercars, the animal kingdom and architecture. In 2010 the HM4 Thunderbolt won at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG).
In 2011 a second family began, the round-cased Legacy Machines. They pay tribute to 19th-century watchmaking by reinterpreting complications from its great inventors. MB&F generally alternates between the two families.
The watches
The Legacy Machine 101 of 2014 holds MB&F’s first in-house conceived calibre, made with the independent watchmaker Kari Voutilainen. With its 40mm case, it remains one of the brand’s smallest and slimmest machines.
In 2015 MB&F and the watchmaker Stephen McDonnell reworked the perpetual calendar in the LM Perpetual. Its 581-component movement uses what the brand calls a mechanical processor, so the date does not skip and the gears do not jam.
McDonnell also conceived the LM Sequential EVO of 2022, the brand’s first chronograph and its 20th calibre in 17 years. It won the Aiguille d’Or, the top prize at the GPHG, and later gained a flyback function in the LM Sequential Flyback.
The house today
MB&F works from the M.A.D.House in Carouge, Geneva, a house built in 1907, where watchmakers assemble movements on the ground floor. Its M.A.D.Galleries show the watches beside other mechanical art. The first opened in Geneva in 2011, followed by Taipei, Dubai and Hong Kong.
The friends in the name include L’Epée 1839, which makes clocks to MB&F designs, and Reuge, with which it made music boxes. In 2021 a second label, M.A.D.Editions, began offering MB&F ideas at a more accessible price, under a name of its own.
In 2025, after 20 years, MB&F introduced the SP One, a 38mm watch built around a floating barrel, balance wheel and dial. Looking back on those two decades, Büsser said: “It is like a dream come true, only I never dreamt it. I could never have even imagined we would be where we are today back then; it is surreal.”
At a glance
- Founded: 2005
- Founder: Maximilian Büsser
- Based in: Carouge, Geneva, Switzerland
- Known for: Horological Machines, Legacy Machines, co-creations with other makers
- Independent: yes
Sources: MB&F’s own website (About MB&F, MB&F Milestones, 20 Years Anniversary, M.A.D.Editions, M.A.D.House).