LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Logitech Thursday 15 March named Bracken Darrell, 49, as future chief executive officer, to replace Guerrino De Luca in 2013. Darrell, who is currently with Whirlpool, previously headed the Braun line for P&G. He joins Logitech, the world’s largest producer of computer peripherals, in April 2012, where he will initially oversee several large departments, including research and development.
He’ll report to De Luca, who left the company in 2008 but returned on a temporary basis as the company began to slow down as tablets and smartphones reduced the need for computer accessories.
Logitech also reported in detail its grant equity inducement award agreement with Darrell, providing more detail than is common for Swiss companies. The new boss will receive 500,000 stock options and 1.5 million premium stock options in July 2012.
MarketWatch reports that the company’s shares have risen 3.2 percent in the past three months.
Swiss takes steps to remain in the black in the face of “far-from-easy market”
Swiss, the airline, saw its profits slip badly in the fourth quarter of 2011 and chief executive Harry Hohmeister warned that “while our load factors remain high, the yield situation is giving us sizeable cause for concern. We see little prospect of any improvement here at present; and these difficulties are being exacerbated by very high oil prices and the strength of the Swiss franc.”
The company reported its fourth quarter earnings and 2011 financial results Thursday 15 March. The Group generated total income from operating activities of CHF4.93 million, a 3 percent increase from a year earlier: CHF 4.77m.
Operating profit was down 17 percent, to CHF306m but most worrisome was the fourth quarter fall to an operating profit of CHF18m compared to CHF135m in 2010.
Hohmeister said that “Our operating results for 2011 clearly reflect the crisis in Japan and the upheavals in North Africa in the course of the year. But they are also the product of a far-from-easy market, especially in the fourth-quarter period.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss company news continues to be haunted by the record strong Swiss franc. Swatch says its sales remain strong despite the franc, but the currency impact is clear, with sales up 27.4 percent at constant rates, over 2010 half-year sales, or 13.3 percent at current rates. Credit Suisse confirmed rumours of job cuts, saying 2,000 are to go, with fixed income and trading income down by 59 percent. Switzerland’s second largest bank
Credit Suisse follows on the heels of UBS, which also announced job cuts and falling profits this week, but as the Financial Times pointed out 14 July, they are not alone “in an industry that is under intense pressure to slash costs”. Credit Suisse, like others, added employees, in its case 2,000 jobs from March 2010 to March 2011, based on expectations that markets would recover after the financial crisis. Factors marking the second quarter for the bank, it says in a statement included: “low levels of client activity and a difficult trading environment with concerns over the European debt crisis and deteriorating global economic indicators; low interest rate environment and strong Swiss franc that reduced pre-tax income by CHF348 million versus 2Q10 and CHF637 million versus 6M10.’
Logitech published its first quarter results for fiscal year 2012 late Wednesday 27 July, showing flat sales of $480 million, up from $479m a year earlier. The Morges and California-based company showed an operating loss of $45 million, compared to income of $12m in the previous year. “Excluding the favorable impact of exchange rate changes, sales declined by 4 percent year over year,” the company’s statement notes. Business Week points out that “Logitech has been affected by the proliferation of tablet computers, which may erode its traditional desktop and notebook business.” The net loss for the quarter was larger than analysts expected, at $30m, compared to $20m net income for the same period a year earlier.
Tablets are “additive”, mouse not about to disappear
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Logitech, based in Romanel-sur-Morges, will have a “tablet focus” to its “product launches in 2012, and 25 percent of its new retail products will be tablet friendly,” reports the Dow Jones Newswire of the company that made its name with computer peripherals, notably the mouse.
Logitech sales in the third quarter of 2010 were up 22 percent and it has raised its forecast for the final quarter of its fiscal year, which ends in March.
Dow Jones, which interviewed the company’s chief executive, Gerald Quindlen on its plans for the future, notes that while consumer analysts have been predicting the death of the mouse for years, Quindlen says he disagrees with them.
Logitech's new solar-powered keyboard
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Logitech will have a solar-powered keyboard for Windows systems ready for the Swiss market at CHF99, the US and the rest of Europe in January 2011 with a suggested European retail price of €79.99. The company based near Morges and in California officially announced the product Monday 1 November, with Denis Pavillard, vice president of product marketing for the company’s keyboards and desktops calling it a major innovation. One of its strongest selling points is that it can charge itself using the light in your work space, and once charged can work up to three months.
“The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard is powered by light but can work in total darkness for up to three months,” Pavillard says. “Plus, with its PVC-free construction and fully recyclable packaging, it’s designed to minimize its footprint.”
Logitech isn’t the first to come up with a solar keyboard, but several of the features have tech writers hailing it.
Daniel Borel at the groundbreaking of the Innovation Center at EPFL; it was inaugurated in September 2010, 15 months later (photo 2009, EPFL / Herzog)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The close relationship looks set to continue between EPFL, the Swiss federal polytechnic institute in Lausanne, and Daniel Borel, a graduate of the school and founder of Logitech. Borel Thursday 30 September helped inaugurate a new Innovation Center on the EPFL campus.
The company he founded, Logitech, is the first firm to take up space in the school’s new five-building centre.
Borel is best known as the man behind the computer mouse. Logitech’s early success was mainly due to the invention of the mouse, which came out of research performed by Jean-Daniel Nicoud, a professor at EPFL. Nicoud developed the first prototype, equipped with a ball and sensors, in the 1970s and Logitech created a production model for Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s.
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.
Daniel Borel, Logitech, at the groundbreaking for EPFL's Innovation House (image: ©Herzog, 2009)
innovation houseLausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday 25 June for Innovation House, a group of five new buildings at EPFL, the Lausanne federal polytechnic institute. It is the latest in a series of major building projects at EPFL designed to turn the school into a full university campus, joining the Rolex Learning Center and student and guest housing, buildings now under construction.
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.
Romanel-sur-Morges, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Logitech shares fell 10% Tuesday morning after announcing a nearly 70% slide in profits. Net income is listed as $40.5 million. The 27-year-old Swiss and US company has long been one of the most resilient around, with double-digit increases in profits every quarter for several years.
Our slowdown news week at GL means you get a little list of short-short news items with sources today:
- Logitech, based in California and Romanel-sur-Morges, Vaud, announced Tuesday that it will be cutting its workforce by 1,500 and it is revising its 2009 projections in the face of a sharp downturn in the retail market: details will be announced January 20. GenevaLunch
- The number of companies created in Switzerland rose in 2008 by 1.3%, a total of 37,000 new registrations, while the number of companies going out of business fell by 6.1%, but if December is any indication, with a sharp rise in the number of companies closing down, 2008 could prove to be the boom before the crash. (RSR, Fre)
- Read more…
Billie, Logitech's billionth mouse, visits his design team in California. Photo, 2008, Logitech.
Menlo Park, California, USA (GenevaLunch) – Forty years ago today the first computer mouse made its appearance, a little brown box with a red eye at the front and a gray cord at the back, that someone – no one now remembers who – said looked like a mouse. The name stuck.
Swiss flag mousepad, Swiss creation: Logitech's mouse, circa 2008
Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A billion computer users today, another billion by 2014 and Logitech ships its billionth mouse. The mouse is the offspring of the first mice, which were created in the 1980s by the company that had its start near Lausanne, Switzerland.
Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland and Fremont, California, US (GenevaLunch) - Logitech International SA is announcing below forecast quaterly net profits and slashing its outlook for 2009.
