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SWISS BUSINESS NEWS

 

 

FALL 2002

 

 

 

Top of the News

 

Foreign direct investment inflows to Switzerland in 2001 totaled US$10 billion, compared to US$16.3 billion in 2000, according to the World Investment Report, released on September 17 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Switzerland accounted for 75% of FDI inflows into Western Europe. Global FDI inflows in 2001 declined by 51% to US$735 billion.

 

 

Wins and Updates

 

Open Text Corporation, Waterloo, Ontario, has consolidated three separate operations at its Swiss headquarters in St. Gallen into a new facility. As the leading global supplier of collaboration and knowledge management software for the enterprise, Open Text supports six million seats across 4,500 corporations in 31 countries and 12 languages.

 

New York-based Symbol Technologies, Inc., a world leader in rugged mobile and wireless computing, is strengthening its local presence in Switzerland with the opening of its new office in the Zurich World Trade Center. The company noted that Switzerland is a country renowned for its receptiveness to innovative technologies and is a buoyant market for Symbol. Local business partners include Bruck Technologies, Dataphone, Peak Technologies (Switzerland), Rodata and Scanix.

 

Digene Corporation, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, established a new subsidiary in Switzerland and has begun domestic sales and shipments of its diagnostic tests and equipment.

The NASDAQ traded company develops, manufactures and markets proprietary DNA and RNA testing systems for the screening, monitoring and diagnosis of human diseases.

 

Toronto-based International Medical Innovations, Inc. (IMI), which first set up shop in Bern in January 2001, recently announced that it has successfully CE-marked its skin cholesterol test, allowing the product to be sold in Europe. Cholesterol 1,2,3 ™ is the world's first non-invasive cholesterol test system, which can be administered in three minutes by scanning the palm of the hand. An expansion of IMI's presence in Switzerland is likely.

 

Taiwan-based Microlife Ltd. has moved its global marketing headquarters and Microlife Europe headquarters to a new building in Heerbrugg, St. Gallen. Its European structure includes Microlife European Holding AG, Microlife AG, Microlife Lifeware AG, Microlife Services AG and Microlife Intellectual Property GmbH. The company specializes in home diagnostic products.

 

Starbucks Coffee Company announced the establishment of Starbucks Coffee Trading Company (SCTC) in Lausanne. SCTC, an affiliate of Starbucks Coffee Company, will be responsible for Starbucks global green coffee purchasing. The establishment of the SCTC complements the responsibilities of the Starbucks coffee team in Seattle, which continues to manage all of the traditional coffee-related functions.

 

Alcan Inc. on September 23 announced it would close its fabrication research and development facilities in the UK and refocus such operations in Kingston, Canada and Neuhausen, Switzerland. The move is part of Alcan's restructuring to reduce costs. The company merged with Alusuisse Group in 2000.

 

On the mergers and acquisition front, GE Finance has further expanded its already very substantial presence in Switzerland with the acquisition of most of ABB's industrial finance unit for a reported $2.3 billion. The portfolio includes global infrastructure, equipment leasing and other financial businesses.

 

Also increasing its Swiss connections, internationally renowned jeweler and specialty retailer Tiffany & Co. has become a majority owner of specialty retailer "Little Switzerland," based in the US Virgin Islands and operating stores primarily in the Caribbean and Alaska.

 

US investment group Global Equity SA has purchased a 22% share, the single largest stake in the famous Jungfraubahn that takes thousands annually to Europe's highest railway atop the Jungfraujoch-Top of Europe. For more, see www.jungfraubahn.ch.

 

Dutch Chemicals company DSM NV has announced its intention to acquire the vitamin and fine chemicals business of Roche Holding AG for $2.2 billion. The deal is still subject to EU clearance before the transaction is likely to be finalized early next year.

 

UK based Bookham Technology has agreed to acquire Nortel Networks pump laser business based in Zurich. The six thousand square meter laser factory initially started out as an IBM spinoff, was then acquired by Uniphase Laser, which was then subsequently acquired by JDS Uniphase. It will now become part of optical components manufacturer Bookham.

 

Also winding up in British hands is Swiss icon Ovomaltine, which is being bought for SFr 400 million by Associated British Foods. Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis put the brand on the auction block earlier this year as it increasingly focuses on its core pharma business. Ovomaltine production will remain in Switzerland.

 

Japanese medical device company Terumo Corp. will purchase the Vascutek vascular grafts business from Centerpulse AG (formerly Sulzer Medica) for $170 million. This follows the earlier announced sale of Minneapolis based Intra Therapeutics to Microvena Corporation.

 

 

 

Other News

 

Two world-class business schools -- MIT Sloan School of Management, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and IMD (International Institute for Management Development), in Lausanne, Switzerland -- have agreed to form an alliance in the area of executive education. The alliance will offer a series of jointly developed, run and marketed executive programs on both sides of the Atlantic, leveraging IMD's internationality and real world interactive learning approach and Sloan's long experience in innovative, high technology enterprise management skills.

 

In another example of closer Swiss-US ties, Swiss watch making manufacturers have awarded $500,000 to Oklahoma State University (OSU) to help enhance its two-year watchmaking program. OSU is one of just three US colleges accredited by the watchmakers training program and the only one to offer a degree in watchmaking and microtechnology. The money will be used to purchase equipment, fund scholarships and to bring instructors to a six-month training program in Switzerland.

Several months after its merger with Compaq, Hewlett-Packard confirmed its decision, to keep its EMEA headquarters in Geneva, which has been home to H-P since 1959. The company, now employing some 400 people, said reasons why it first moved to Geneva remain valid: first-class infrastructure, international airport only minutes from the H-P center, high quality of life, highly qualified workforce and an understanding by Geneva of the special requirements of expatriate employees and multinational companies.

 

Switzerland's National Science Foundation has awarded the prestigious Latsis prize to Jerome Faist for his work on developing a laser that can beam huge amounts of data into homes. The technology could replace the last-mile "bottleneck" by replacing fiber or copper wires with lasers to bring high-speed data across the air. Faist, a professor at the University of Neuchatel, developed the laser while working at Bell Laboratories.

 

The "Industrial Development Scorecard" released in July by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) ranks the level of industrialization in 87 countries throughout the world. Based on 1998 data, Switzerland ranks 2nd after Singapore in terms of so called industrial performance, stemming largely from a combination of foreign direct investment and in-country efforts to foster the newest technology.

 

Under the motto "We Shape the Future," Georg Fischer, the international industrial corporation doing business in over 150 countries worldwide is celebrating its 200th Anniversary this year. At a ceremony attended by Swiss Ambassador to the US Christian Blickenstorfer, the US subsidiary just celebrated its birthday. The headquarters' celebration was held in Schaffhausen earlier this summer.

 

Starting in spring of next year, Continental Airlines will expand its existing Newark to Zurich connection by launching a daily non-stop flight into Geneva as well. Flight 81 will be on a Boeing 767-200 which will depart Geneva at 10:50 a.m. and return from Newark at 6.55 p.m. every evening.

 

Swiss growth performance in the past quarter century has been 'mediocre', held back by poor productivity in the services, construction, and agriculture sectors, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a report. The IMF noted that Swiss real gross domestic product growth averaged 1.5% in the past 25 years, 0.75 percentage points behind the European average, and 1.5% below that recorded in industrialized countries. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=15976.0

 

Geneva and Zurich continue to be among the best places to live and work in the world.

According to a recent survey, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the Economist Group, Geneva and Zurich rank 2nd and 3rd (only after Vienna) as the most desirable and least stressful places to be in Europe. The survey, intended to measure "hardships" faced by expatriates, looks at the conditions existing in 130 cities.

 

 

Publicity and Promotion

 

Releases distributed since our last newsletter include AWB's new global grain marketing operation in Geneva and Microlife Ltd. in St. Gallen. A promotion for the "Swiss panel presentation" during Internet World included invitations to meet with Mario and was sent to Swiss NPR, CNET, BBC World Service, Gartner/Dataquest, ABC TV, Bloomberg Radio, AP, eMarketer, Fast Company and CBS Marketwatch. In the queue, Bulova in Fribourg, MDS Pharma and Symbol Technologies in Zurich, Dow's new research facilities in Horgen, Open Text in St. Gallen and Starbucks in Lausanne.

 

 

 

News from Location Promotion Switzerland