La Poste, letter sorting
Web stamps, a recent product for Swiss letters
Bern,Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Private delivery companies will be able to deliver letters over 50 grams starting 1 July 2009. The Swiss Federal Council 22 April gave its approval to the change, thus opening up 25 percent of the postal system to private competition.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Sales at multinational Nestlé, based in Vevey, slipped by 2.1 percent to CHF25.2 billion and organic growth was 3.8 percent, down from 10 percent in 2008. The company says the results are in line with forecasts and confirm expected full-year results for 2009. Sales were pulled down by acquisitions, -0.7 percent, and the strength of the Swiss franc, with a negative 5.7 percent impact.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, has sold back its Brazilian financial investment company UBS Pactual to the group’s founders, BGT, for $2.5 billion, virtually the same price it paid for the company in 2006. UBS says the sale is in line with its plans to reduce its risk profile and strengthen its assets. The sale increases the Swiss bank’s tier 1 capital by CHF1.3 billion, decreases risk-weighted assets by CHF3b, and it reduces total assets by CHF6.3b.
Basel, Switzerland (Genevalunch) – Roche Pharmaceuticals sales increased 7 percent (8 in local currencies) to CHF11.6 billion during the first quarter of 2009, indicating a good recovery from 2008 when company shares took their biggest dive in 11 years. The improvement was due mainly to strong sales of cancer treatment products.
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The Swiss postal system, La Poste, will be reviewing 420 post offices, mainly in villages but some in cities, to determine if they should remain open or revise the services they offer. The list is available at www.poste.ch/listedessites. More than one-third are in French-speaking Switzerland, some 150 post offices.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s consumer watchdog, popularly known as Mr Price, received 1,281 complaints in 2008, with the largest number about hikes in electricity and medicine costs. These were followed by complaints about customs duties, telecommunications rates, water and waste charges.
Updated 22:00 with links on reactions Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UBS shareholders meet today, 15 April, to approve the new governing board of the bank at the annual general meeting (AGM). Before the doors opened the bank had made a pre-announcement that first quarter 2009 losses amount to nearly CHF2 billion and that it will cut 8,700 jobs, for a global workforce that will be reduced to 67,500 in 2010. Nearly one-third of the bank’s employees are in Switzerland and 2,500 of the job cuts will be in Switzerland, with 1,200-1,500 of them through layoffs. UBS says it expects to cut costs by CHF3.5 to 4 billion by the end of 2010, compared to 2008 costs.
New York, USA (GenevaLunch) – Charges dating back to 2002 against a number of companies who are accused of helping the old South African government to maintain apartheid can go ahead, a judged in New York ruled Thursday 9 April, but charges were dropped against Swiss bank UBS and Barclays of the UK, as well as electronics company Fujitsu. The judge dismissed charges against them, saying, “Corporate defendants accused of merely doing business with the apartheid government of South Africa have been dismissed.”
Philipp Hildebrand
Thomas Jordan
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Philipp Hildrebrand, age 46, 8 April was named chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), effective 2010, taking charge at that point of the SNB’s Department I, with responsibility for economic affairs, international affairs, legal and property services, and support functions. He will take over from Jean-Pierre Roth, who retires at the end of 2009. Thomas Jordan, also 46, was named vice-chairman. A new member of the Board has been named: Jean-Pierre Danthine, from Vaud, who heads the Swiss Finance Institute.
Updated 10 April 13:10 London, England and Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Mars has become the latest chocolate maker to go green with its products, making a commitment ” to spend tens of millions of dollars annually certifying that the cocoa used in the $10bn of chocolate products it sells every year is sustainably sourced by 2020,” reports the Financial Times. Mars claims to be the world’s largest end-user of chocolate. The company joins Cadbury (whose European head office is in Rolle, Vaud, Switzerland), the largest chewing gum and sweets maker in the world, which has a significant chocolate business. Cadbury announced in March that it would increase direct Fair Trade buying from farmers, spending £45 million in the next 10 years to “to secure the sustainable socio-economic future of cocoa farming in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean where the cocoa farming industry is facing increasing challenges.”
Geneva, Switzerland (RSR, Fre) – RSR reports that the president of ARFEC-APG, a charity that helps families of children with cancer, is wanted by the group to answer questions about CHF1 million that appears to be missing. The man, whose name is not given by the radio station, is reported to be living in Tunisia.
In a speech to the Council of Institutional Investors in the US, pocked by protestors’ jeers and boos aimed at the protestors, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein suggested that Wall Street and banking firms need to dramatically change compensation packages, among other reforms. Reuters The Financial Times reports that in his speech he argued that “Employ American” rules tacked to bailout money for banks is protectionist and could prompt a negative reaction outside the US. Goldman Sachs has received $10 billion in US government aid.
ACM's new offices, Zurich, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – ACM, the world’s largest currency trader, based in Geneva, Monday announced that is opening a new office in Zurich. The announcement comes on the heels of confirmation last week that it has applied for a banking license. The company told GenevaLunch in October 2008 that it would be applying for a license, partly as a result of changes in Swiss law covering online transactions, but that it intends to maintain currency trading as its principle business.
Police visit more fuss than trouble
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – Bank accounts have been blocked in Geneva by the Swiss government in relation to the “Anglo Leasing” scandal in Kenya, which may go back more than 10 years, that involved money-laundering related to purchases of helicopters and officials’ cars, NZZ in Zurich reports. The Tribune picks up the story.
Vevey, Switzerland (RSR/ats, Fre) – Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestlé, told Sonntag Sunday newspaper 5 April that he expects the company to add 300 jobs in Switzerland this year. The multinational’s long-term outlook is positive, he noted, with an additional billion consumers expected in the next 10 years.
Zurich, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Werner Karlen, the CEO of Implenia, Switzerland’s largest construction company, has left after being in the job only since 1 February. The company issued a statement that he had left, by mutual agreement, to pursue a change of direction in his career, adding that both had agreed not to make any further comments.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss Re will lay off 10 percent of its worldwide work force of 11,560 by the end of 2009, the company announced 2 April. The company lost CHF864 million in 2008. It also said it has appointed Agostino Galvagni, 49, as chief operating officer. He replaces Stefan Lippe, who became CEO in February 2009 when Jacques Aigrain was forced out of the post.
Boris Collardi, Bank Julius Baer
Zurich, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – The new CEO of Bank Julius Baer, Switzerland’s second largest wealth management bank with CHF338 billion under management, is from Nyon: Boris Collardi, age 34. He finished school in Nyon, began his banking career in Geneva at Credit Suisse and studied at IMD in Lausanne.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Shares in Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, fell 9.1 percent in trading Monday 30 March on news that the bank is likely to cut 8,000 jobs, more than 10 percent of its global workforce.
New York, USA and Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps and 20 Minutes/afp, Fre) – The latest financial fraud scheme to be discovered by the SEC, it reports, appears to have involved a Geneva financial group, United Trust of Switzerland, with US clients as the target and some $68 million lost in the a Ponzi scheme similar to the one created by Bernard Madoff. The bank offers only an address in the Caribbean despite its wholly-owned subsidiary, Millennium Bank, saying it has been in business since 1931.
Ultra-deepwater drillship Deepwater Discovery working off West Africa (photo: Transocean)
Updated 21:15 Geneva, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – TSR carries a video report on 10 foreign companies that have decided to move their head offices to Switzerland to date in 2009. They include Transocean, the world’s largest offshore oil drilling company, which has moved from the Caribbean to Geneva.
Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre)- Le Temps argues in a lengthy feature story Wednesday 25 March that Geneva has with the most to lose in the Lake Geneva region if Switzerland decides to harmonize its cantonal tax corporate tax laws.
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Migros is adding, in coming weeks, a new product line that features high quality at a low cost, called M-Classic, says the company. The new lineup, with some 600 new products by the end of the year, will be easily identifiable by its packaging.
The Financial Times reports that shares on the big three indexes in the US rose more than 4 percent each in early trading Monday on news of the new US government package to “relieve banks of up to $1,000bn in legacy assets plaguing their balance sheets.”
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s foreign trade, both exports and imports, in February continued the slump that began in December 2008. The trade balance fell to half the figure of a year ago, down to a positive balance of CHF731 million.
All industries were hit by the slump, with imports and exports down by double-digit numbers: 17.3 percent and 13.7 percent respectively. Even the watch industry, which has withstood slumps seen earlier in other industries, was hit hard by a 22.4 percent fall in exports.
Gloomy forecast
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The forecast for economic growth in Switzerland has been revised downward, to -2.2 percent in 2009 by the federal government’s group of experts who meet regularly to assess the economy. Based on the assumption that world financial markets will begin to stabilize, economic growth should be back in the black by 2010, to 1.1 percent growth, according to the group.
Ikea soon in Geneva?
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – A long battle for Swedish home store Ikea to set up shop in Geneva’s Vernier district is drawing to a close, with the store and the local government signing papers 17 March that will allow Ikea to start building. The deciding factor was reportedly Ikea’s agreement to allot 200 of the 400 jobs created to unemployed people in the Vernier district, according to the Tribune.
Zurich, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Ernesto Bertarelli, former owner of Serano and owner of Alinghi, the boat that won the last America’s Cup, is withdrawing from the UBS board, along with Geneva lawyer Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler and Joerg Woll. The bank will re-elect its board at an April 15 meeting.
Existing building, Blandonnet, 2009: HSBC will move into new building
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – HSBC will regroup its 12 Geneva offices in 2010, reports the Tribune, moving them to the relatively new Blandonnet International Business Centrer where a third building is nearing completion.
The company’s move will bring the number of people working in the centre to 4,500.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss National Bank 12 March announced that it is taking steps to lower the Swiss franc against the euro: it is investing in Swiss franc bonds issued by private borrowers, narrowing the range of the benchmark Libor interest rate to 0-0.75% with immediate effect in order to bring interest rates lower, and it is buyng foreign currency on foreign exchange markets. The Financial Times Friday morning leads with the currency exchange move news, citing several analysts who say Switzerland could be setting off a currency war.
