Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One of Switzerland’s largest advertising space sales companies, PubliGroupe, has posted a net loss of CHF8.5 million for the first six months of 2009, with consolidated sales down to CHF798.4 million, a 28 percent drop. The company’s financial report calls this “the worst market in 50 years” and says the “economic downturn is hitting the advertising markets more and more severely and stepping up the pace of their structural change.”
The company ended 2008 with a CHF42.1 million loss.
Photo ©2009 PHOTOPRESS/Gaetan Bally)
Update 15 August 08:10 Bienne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swatch group, the world’s largest maker of watches, posted profits of CHF301 million for the first half of 2009, 28 percent down compared to the same period last year, which was a record year. By late Friday 14 August when the market closed in Zurich the company’s shares had risen 13 percent, the most in 10 months according to Bloomberg, which says the company led a surge in luxury goods share prices.
The watchmaker’s results confirm that the Swiss watch industry is suffering the effects of the global downturn, but the company says it sees signs of recovery and that sales in the second half of the year are expected to beat last year’s sales for the same period.
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.
Lake Geneva, Vaudois Alps, 19 March 2009
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A reprieve from winter during the past week, with heavy coats and jackets left at home, may have weakened your desire to head for the mountains, but if the weather forecast is right about cold and snow coming our way by next Tuesday, you might want to reconsider. Pick up some sun this weekend and watch the pros in Verbier!
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One of the oldest newspapers in the US, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, published its last print version Tuesday 17 March and today the web site for the paper carried a tombstone for it. The Hearst Corporation, which owns the newspaper, has been trying unsuccessfully for several weeks to sell it, as well as the ailing San Francisco Chronicle, another major US city newspaper. Hearst will continue with the web site in Seattle, but with a greatly reduced staff of journalists who will work for lower pay. Seattle Post Intelligencer, AFP
Holiday shoppers anxious to hit the sales early burst through the doors of a Wal-Mart store on Long Island, in New York, USA. The surge of people trampled a temporary worker, killing the man, and injured four people, including a pregnant woman.
