Swiss-based Schindler announces jobs cuts
LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND – The world’s second-largest elevator manufacturer, Swiss multinational Schindler, announced it had a “pleasing performance” as it turned in a net profit totaling CHF528 million for the reporting period from January 1 to September 30, 2011. Profits remained almost unchanged compared to CHF530 million in 2010.
Schindler achieved a 5.4% increase in orders received in local currencies and a 6.3% rise in operating revenue during the same period.
However, the lift-maker said that “as a result of the sovereign debt crisis and the numerous political decisions that have yet to be reached, uncertainty persists regarding the development of the global economy,” a reason why it would cut 1,772 jobs, mostly in Spain, Portugal and the United States.
“The outlook for the economies of Southern Europe and the USA remains unfavorable. Schindler therefore expects the difficult conditions in these markets to continue,” said the Swiss company in a written release.
The entire package of measures is expected to result in “operational improvements and cost savings of around CHF150 million by the end of 2013.”
LONDON – According to data released by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), British customers made more complaints against Barclays than any other financial institution in the UK.
Barclays was the subject of 251,563 complaints, with 53 percent of closed cases upheld in customers’ favour, the regulator’s figures showed.
Next on the list was Lloyds TSB Bank Plc and Santander UK was third.
Reuters also announced that the head of Barclays’ retail and business banking in Britain and Europe is set to leave the bank, handing the running of its core UK operations to the current head of its African business.
Link to: Reuters.
Zurich, one of three Swiss cities where JP Morgan will expand its operations
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s preeminence as a banking powerhouse does not seem to be fading; a Tages-Anzeiger article published today 5 January says giant financial services firm JP Morgan will be bringing hundreds of new jobs to Geneva, Zoug and Zurich.
Martin Schütz, Co-Chairman of JP Morgan in Switzerland is quoted in the article as saying their work force will grow to 1,000 employees; that is an increase of almost 400 new jobs from now until 2012.
“Switzerland has always been at the heart of our international finance strategies” said Schütz. “Our customers benefit from a strong currency, minimal inflation, prudent national banking and high quality service,” he added.
Zoug is becoming an important market in JP Morgan’s financial strategies as the town is developing into an international trade centre of raw materials and metals.
In December 2010 JP Morgan in London also expanded operations thus reaffirming the company’s previous statements that Europe is becoming an important market for its expanding financial and trade services.
JP Morgan Chase’s corporate headquarters are in New York City.
Nestle goes full speed in 2010
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Net profit at multinational Nestle saw a 7.5% increase and a sales increase of 6.1% during the first half of 2010.
The Vevey-based company – the world’s biggest food and beverage group, is set to eclipse rivals Unilever and Kraft.
Organic growth for all Food and Beverages operations was 5.3% in the Americas, 3.6% in Europe and 10.4% in Asia, Oceania and Africa.
The Group’s emerging markets continued to achieve over 10% organic growth.
Full report: Nestle.
Transocean will join the SMI - Photo SWX
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – In spite of first quarter financial difficulties related to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, Transocean will be admitted to the Swiss Market Index (SMI) effectively 21 June.
Transocean, the world’s largest offshore oil rig company based in Zug, will be admitted to the blue-chip SMI replacing Swiss Life Holding on the Zurich exchange.
The company moved to Switzerland in 2008 from the US Cayman Islands.
Title: Luncheon, Saatchi & Saatchi
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Pedro Simko will explain what lovemarks and how these transcend brands.
Date: 2010-05-28
Title: Luncheon, The multilateral commonwealth
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Speaker Kamalesh Sharma, The Commonwealth Secretary-General.
Date: 2010-05-17
Logitech raises profit
Morges, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss giant Logitech International has raised its sales outlook and profit thanks to cost-cutting measures, new products and increased consumer demand.
The net profit for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2010, which ended 31 March, is $24 million, instead of the $19 million originally forecast. Sales were also up 29 percent to $525 million, from $408 million a year earlier.
The computer peripheral manufacturer was helped by the acquisition of LifeSize video conferencing products, its reporting currency, and a weak dollar.
The company expects to reach annual sales of about $2.3 billion in fiscal 2011, up from $2 billion in the year just ending.
Analysts and the stock market appeared less impressed by the company’s strong fourth quarter, with sales for the full year down from those for fiscal year 2009 ($2.2b). Stock prices slipped slightly and some analysts told Reuters that they would be lowering their forecasts for fiscal year 2011, which ends in March 2011.
Title: Luncheon, US Ambassador to the UN
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Sponsored by the American International Women’s Club of Geneva with Ambassador Betty KING, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
Date: 2010-05-07
Title: Luncheon, The Global Fund
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Prof. Michel Kazatchkine
ch Executive Director – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Date: 2010-05-06
Record profits at UBS
Update 13:30 Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss banking giant UBS has announced that pre-tax profits for the first quarter of 2010 will reach CHF2.5 billion. The statement was made ahead of its annual general meeting, which takes place takes place 14 April. Swiss media reports Monday indicate that the meeting Wednesday is likely to be a heated one.
This is its highest pre-tax profit since 2007.
Net client withdrawals from its wealth management units were down more than CHF15 billion from Q4 in 2009.
Institutional investors’ rep Ethos opposes remuneration and discharge agenda items
Two agenda items have prompted a group of investors led by Ethos to put up a fight at the annual general meeting Wednesday: the discharge of the board and executive committee members for 2007, 2008 and 2009 and the bank’s remuneration policy. Ethos is a UBS shareholder that represents a number of large Swiss institutional investors, notably several pension funds.
UBS announced its decision, in December, to clear the board and committee members from 2007-2009 of criminal wrongdoing, after internal and Finma (Swiss banking supervisory body) investigations into the bank’s losses and problems with the US tax office, the IRS.
Title: Lecture: Ethical Sourcing: A different way of buying coffee
Location: Lausanne
Link out: Click here
Description: Stephane Erard, Green Coffee Trader at Starbucks will explain the process of sourcing coffee in a sustainable way.
Date: 2010-04-27
Title: Luncheon: Business and sustainability
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Speaker, David James P. Leape, Director General of WWF International.
Date: 2010-04-16
A sad Easter for the Lindt bunny?
Kilchberg, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli AG has announced a drop in its net profit: in 2009 the company’s net profit was CHF193 million, a 26 percent drop from CHF265m in 2008.
Group sales fell, although by only 1.9 percent, in 2009 to CHF2.52 billion, from CHF2.57b in 2008.
According to Lindt’s financial report, published 16 March, “for the first time in 10 years, the overall chocolate market declined in volume,” which adversely affected the profit margin. However, the Group operating result (EBIT) stood at CHF264 million with an operating profit margin of 10.5 percent.
The company says it will continue its long-term profit targets.
Title: Seminar: Private wealth management in the new era
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: A Legal and Tax Chapter Seminar supported by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, Association Suisse-Romande.
Ivan Pictet, Chairman, Geneva Financial Centre
Philip Marcovici, Partner, Baker & McKenzie, Zurich and CEO & Chairman, LawinContext Pte. Ltd.
Pascal Saint-Amans, Head of the International Co-Operation and Tax Competition Division of the OECD.
14.30 Registration, 15.00 – 18.40 Seminar, 18.45 – 20.00 Cocktail Reception, Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
Date: 2009-03-25
Title: Lecture/luncheon: The state of Britain today
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Simon Heffer, Associate Editor, The Daily Telegraph.
“The State of Britain Today. Stalled in an unprecedented economic glitch, or on the verge of another great self-reinvention?”
11.45 Reception, 12.15 Lunch, Hotel Richemond
Date: 2009-03-03
Title: Geneva: Great British Breakfast
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: With Zamir Akram, Ambassador & Permanent Representative of Pakistan.
07.45 – 08.45, Hotel Bristol
Date: 2009-02-10
Title: Switzerland and the UK: two integrated islands
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: With the Ambassador of the Swiss Confederation to the United Kingdom.
11.45 Aperitifs, 12.15 Lunch, Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
Date: 2009-01-18
Inflation at a 50-year low
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Inflation in Switzerland reached its lowest point in 50 years which according to experts leaves the Confederation at risk for potential deflation.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and its largest commercial partner in Asia, Japan, will officially begin a free trade agreement 1 September. Switzerland has become the first European nation to enter an economic alliance with the “Land of the Rising Sun.”
Washington, DC and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The New York Times Tuesday 23 June reports that the US Justice Department “may drop a closely watched legal case” with the IRS trying to force Swiss bank UBS to turn over the names of 52,000 clients. The newspaper’s unnamed source appears to confirm what Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz hinted at 19 June after a revised tax treaty was initialed by the two countries, that the US , cites “an American official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.”
Neither the bank nor the Swiss government have commented on the news story.
Making prices crystal clear
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The hotel and restaurant industry in Switzerland is under pressure from the Swiss Federal Department of Finance to conform to newly published federal ordinance that covers room and food advertising and pricing. The ministry argues that transparent prices and the ability to compare prices are two essential ingredients in a market economy. Tourism is one of the country’s largest industries, with domestic and foreign tourists spending nearly CHF 21 billion (2004, latest figures).
The pricing regulations (pdf, Fre) include such details as ice cream with cream as an option: the cream should be priced separately. For lodging, the ordinance gives hotels this example:
price per night, breakfast included, sales tax and tourism tax, CHF120.00 (also includes the City Card with a value of CHF6.00, valid for all forms of public transportation).
Updated 121:20 In the sharpest message sent in years by a US administration to Israel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters after meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister that Israel must stop all settlements activities in Palestine, with no exceptions. “We think it is in the best interest of the effort that we are engaged in, that settlement expansion cease,” she said, noting that US President Barack Obama had been very clear on the matter in a recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due in Washington 28 May, and the settlements will be a topic in scheduled talks with Obama. Al Jazeera, BBC, New York Times and analysis, Jerusalem Post
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The world’s largest reinsurance company, Swiss Re, has posted a first quarter 2009 profit of CHF150 million, down dramatically (76 percent) compared to Q1 2008, but a significant turnaround from the company’s billion franc loss in 2008.
Geneva, Switzerland (TSR, Le Temps) – The announcement by US President Barack Obama to eliminate tax loop holes used by US multinational firms with operations abroad is sparking reactions in Switzerland where companies such as Dow Chemical, General Motors, Philip Morris, and Procter & Gamble have set up their operations.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UBS is reporting in a webcast 6 May that its loss for the first quarter of 2009 is CHF2 billion.
Net outflows of new money for its Global Asset Management business have slowed, the bank reports, to CHF7.7 billion.
The loss is attributed mainly to risk business that the bank has left or is in the process of leaving. UBS live webcast, 09:00
Related, Le Temps (Fre)
Elbikon, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Swiss elevator (lift) company Schindler is laying off 36 people and turning to a common Swiss economic downturn solution, partial employment, the Lucerne-based company announced 28 April, Tuesday.
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – Palexpo, Geneva’s congress and exhibition centre, has asked for building permits to start a project to modernize its complex, including installations, at a cost of CHF100 million. The project, if approved, will take five years. Details of the project, Palexpo, Fre
Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Computer peripherals manufacturer Logitech, long proud of double-digit quarterly increases in profits, posted one of its worst results in years Thursday 23 April, showing a fourth quarter fiscal year 2009 loss of $35 million. A year earlier the company’s net income was $60.3. The company’s fiscal year ends 31 March. Poor sales, down 32 percent for the year, were blamed.
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The Swiss government has charged the Police and Justice Department with drawing up the legal framework for online gambling, which would provide for 5-10 licences, making Internet gambling legal in Switzerland. Legal gambling is expected to bring in anywhere from CHF1 to 26 million in tax revenue. Online gambling, while illegal, has clearly been growing and is estimated at CHF115-139 m. A key rationale for legalizing it is to ensure that income from it does not escape Swiss tax authorities.
