Tag Archives: Business

Lekkerland supplied some 2,700 retailers in Switzerland. © Keystone / Christian Beutler A company that supplies Swiss motorway service stations and convenience stores has gone into liquidation after failing to find new investors. Some 144 jobs at Lekkerland Switzerland are now at risk of disappearing by the end of the year. The company on Monday said it was concentrating on finding new suppliers for the 2,700 stores that it currently services. It is also making...

Defining the exact nature of sustainable finance and measuring its performance is an ongoing process. Keystone / Guillaume Horcajuelo The Swiss financial centre wants to take a lead in ethical investing. NGOs, however, fear the banks are more interested in cashing in than saving the planet. One thing everyone agrees on is the need for a universal definition of sustainable finance and measures to oversee the sector. Sustainable finance invests in the environmental,...

The goal of sustainable finance is to divert more funds into environmentally and socially responsible projects. Keystone / Laurent Darbellay Extra rules will only be imposed on the sustainable finance sector if banks fail to properly police themselves, says the Swiss government. The hands-off regulatory approach to ethical investing has been welcomed by financial players, but criticised by NGOs. Unveiling a report on sustainable finance on Friday, Finance Minister...

The Swiss gold refining industry has once again come under scrutiny with a report that criticises the lack of control over imports of the precious metal. The Federal Audit Office says it is too easy for illegal imports to enter the country and that sanctions are inadequate. Most of the world’s gold passes through Switzerland to be transformed from raw material and refined. It’s a business that can range in value between CHF60 and CHF90 billion ($70-90 billion)...

SoftBank has quietly poured more than $500m into Credit Suisse investment funds. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. SoftBank has quietly poured more than $500m into Credit Suisse investment funds that in turn made big bets on the debt of struggling start-ups backed by the Japanese technology conglomerate’s Vision Fund. SoftBank made the investment into the Swiss bank’s $7.5bn range of supply-chain finance funds, said three people familiar with...

Achiko says its Cayman issues only came to light after listing in Switzerland. Keystone / Georgios Kefalas Cayman Islands fintech company Achiko has run into “compliance issues” just months after listing on the Swiss stock exchange. The firm has called a meeting of shareholders this week to approve a plan to create a Swiss company and re-list the shares from this entity. But some shareholders are upset that they will not be able to cast their votes the annual general...

Even with big sales, prices on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse are still some of the highest in the world © Keystone / Walter Bieri Three Swiss cities – Zurich, Bern and Geneva – are among the ten most expensive in the world for expatriates, according to the annual Cost of Living survey by consultants Mercer. Hong Kong remains at the top of the list of 209 countries for the third year in a row. Six of the top ten are in Asia, three in Switzerland and one in the United...

The controversial issue of e-voting is back: Swiss Post, which had halted the development of a project in July 2019, has bought a Spanish-owned system and plans to propose a platform ready for testing by 2021. Opposition to the plans of Swiss Post remains strong. The purchase was reported on May 17 by the SonntagsBlick newspaper, who wrote that the deal between Swiss Post and Spanish firm Scytl had been settled for an unspecified amount. The deal follows the...

Home office: more or less efficient? (© Keystone / Christian Beutler) Thanks to more focus and flexibility, productivity per worker increased by up to 16% during the Covid-19 lockdown in Switzerland, a study has calculated. The study by the Swiss Trade Association (SGV), reported in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, found that while hours worked dropped by 10% in the first quarter of 2020, GDP sank by just 2.6%. This translates to a productivity jump of up to 16%. And if...

The WEF Davos meeting will be rebuilt differently next year. (Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle) The World Economic Forum (WEF) annual conference in Davos will take place in January with fewer physical participants – but with a new “virtual” connection to more than 400 cities around the world. The introduction of a “powerful virtual hub network” at the 51st edition of WEF’s flagship event will allow a younger generation of “global shapers” to dial into the conference...