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The uncharitable take is that they claimed to have launched their own manufacture movement several years ago, but it turned out it wasn't theirs. They took a pummelling from many people for that. Now they have a new one, which they also didn't develop from scratch, but bought the rights to and modified. It is mostly made in their UK facilities but not 100%. So is it really in-house? Is it any better than a Swiss ebauché? It it actually just a Swiss ebauché?
The prices are probably the result of the investment they've taken and the new building they have to pay for. Maybe with some aspirational element in there too - hey, if we’re the same price as Omega, people will think we must be as good.
They're like TVR or someone like that - a frumpy and mostly unexceptional product with corners cut that is always going to sell to a certain type of customer who wants to buy British things and will pay for them despite their poorer value or relative lack of quality.
The more charitable take is that their tenacity is admirable and they have a clear goal - it's a plucky fight against the big boys. And it is very hard and extremely expensive to make a new watch movement. They're not doing much that someone like Nomos didn't do when they started out - take an existing movement and make your own version.
Regal-
I'd question whether it's actually worthwhile having a 90% custom movement and pricing yourself at the edge of Omega. If they want to go for that £5k market it feels they need to be fully making their own or they should embrace the fact they use a good LJP one, polish it a bit, spend the rest of the effort on design and case finishing and go for the <£3k market with Longines.
Sumo
What abouty Bremont's in-house movement(s)? Quite a story. https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/up-close-and-personal-with-the-bremont-eng300 Are they worth the high RRPs?