Universal Genève was founded on 18 January 1894 in Le Locle, Neuchâtel, as Universal Watch, by Numa-Emile Descombes, Ulysse Georges Perret and Louis Edouard Berthoud. Perret moved the company to Geneva in 1919. It became known for chronographs, including the Compax family (the Aero Compax appeared in 1936) and the Tri-Compax, and for the Polerouter, designed by Gérald Genta and first produced in 1954, followed by micro-rotor models such as the 1965 Shadow series. Bulova owned the company in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1970s it moved to quartz movements and phased out most automatics, a shift that proved financially damaging, and in 1989 it was bought by the Hong Kong-based Stelux Holdings.
On 12 December 2023 Stelux sold the brand’s intellectual property to Partners Group, majority owner of Breitling, and Universal Genève became a Geneva-based subsidiary of Breitling SA under CEO Georges Kern. After announcing three unique Polerouter pieces in November 2024, the brand fully relaunched in April 2026 with the Polerouter, Compax, Dioramic, Disco Volante and Cabriolet collections, powered by its UG-110 micro-rotor automatic, UG-111 manual-wind and UG-200 column-wheel chronograph calibres.
