ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse (ETA SA Swiss Watch Manufacturer) designs and manufactures quartz watches and both hand-wound and automatic-winding mechanical and movements. Commonly referred to as ETA, the company is headquartered in Grenchen, Switzerland, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Swatch Group. Though ETA was founded by Eterna in 1856 some part of its production line can be traced back to the 1793 founding of Fabriques d’Horlogerie de Fontainemelon (FHF) by David Benguerel, Isaac Benguerel, François Humbert-Droz and Julien Humbert-Droz. Through a series of mergers, ETA has become the largest manufacturer of Swiss watch movements and controls a virtual monopoly over their production and supply. ETA has undergone several Swiss government investigations due to its market position. To resolve the concerns of Swiss government regulators, ETA has entered into an agreement that governs certain business practices. Description ETA designs and manufactures mechanical and automatic watches, watch movements and watch . Although the company produces finished watches and movements, ETA specializes in the production of movements used both in watches of sister Swatch Group subsidiary brands and in the watches of competitors, including brands owned by Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. and others. With the exception of hairsprings manufactured by sister company Nivarox, ETA maintains vertical control over the manufacturing of all of the components required to create a watch movement and therefore is considered a true manufacture d'horlogerie. History ETA is the result of successive consolidation of the Swiss watch industry, a combination of several former Swiss watch movement manufacturers including Valjoux, Peseux and Lemania. In 1856 at Grenchen, Urs Schild, a schoolmaster, and Dr. Girard set up a watch movement () factory which eventually became Eterna. In 1926, ETA AS (the movement branch of Eterna, founded in 1896) and FHF (founded in 1793) took part in the creation of Ébauches Ltd. In 1978 AS and ETA merged and in 1985 ETA took in all the activities done before by Ébauches Ltd and FHF (both part of SMH/Swatch Group). SSIH was founded in 1930 through the amalgamation of Omega and Tissot. By consolidating companies that produced high-quality movements and a number of watch brands, SSIH gradually established a strong position in the Swiss watch industry. At the time, both SSIH and ASUAG held a number of well-established Swiss watch brands. ASUAG had been founded in 1931. ASUAG expanded through the purchase of companies that made movement-blanks and a