Post office runs trial morning mail deliveries

Vaud, Switzerland (24 Heures, Fre) - La Poste, the Swiss postal service, is running six-month trials, in several parts of Vaud, of afternoon-only mail deliveries to households, with business areas given priority for morning delivery. Newspapers continue to be delivered in the morning in the tests that began last week. The trial, designed to make the post office more competitive in preparation for the market opening up in 2012, will give the postal service a chance to study the financial implications of the change. Business areas are defined as sectors where at least 3% of those receiving mail have a minimum of 10 items delivered a day.,

Credit Suisse among latest banks hit by US auction rate securities

New York, USA (GenevaLunch) - The continuing and widespread investigations in the United States into auction rate securities abuses by banks have netted two former Credit Suisse brokers, both under arrest for misleading their clients (see Securities and Exchange Commission press release). Several banks have been investigated by the SEC and various states in the US since the collapse of the auction rate securities market; widespread complaints by clients that they were told the market was relatively safe when in fact it was increasingly unstable has led to a number of settlements by banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse.

Today's story, TSR, Fre

Background: "UBS shares fall on news that New York files civil charges," 25 July 2008, GenevaLunch

Nestle surprise news: Polman's abrupt departure (is Unilever's gain)

Updated 09:30  Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nestlé, in an early Thursday morning brief press release with no details, announced the departure of Paul Polman, executive vice-president in charge of the company's Zone America," with immediate effect in order to pursue other interests." Unilever, meanwhile, announced that Polman will move into its CEO slot effective January, when current CEO Patrick Cescau retires. Unilever is the world's second largest consumer group, according to Bloomberg.

Polman moved from Procter & Gamble to Nestle in 2006 as the food multinational's chief financial officer and he was widely tipped in 2007 to take on the job of executive president when Peter Brabeck-Letmathe retired and moved to the post of chairman of the board. The company in a surprise announcement in September 2007 named Paul Brucke, head of Zone Americas, to the top job and in January 2008 Polman moved from his finance job to head the Americas unit.

Polman, who is Dutch, will be heading a company based in The Netherlands.

Financial Times story on the Unilever appointment

Post-George (Clooney, that is)

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - There is a kind of post-George hangover in the air in Geneva today, after George Clooney's brief visit to raise $1 million-plus for Barack Obama. The Irish broadcasting network made his fundraising stopover headline news, picking up the story from Reuters (as did Yahoo News), Swisster, part of the Edipresse publishing group, made a flash in the pan Clooney autograph signing session in Carouge its main story on the Tribune de Geneve, and WRS, ran an interview with Charles Adams, Clooney's host, Tuesday morning, to ask if there were any seats left for the $10,000 dinner (answer: no) among the 75 on offer. You can check out the photo of him on the WRS page if you missed the real George.

Swiss rail company CFF has strong half-year

Photo: popular Lausanne-Bern train rides through the Lavaux Unesco heritage site.

Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CFF rail company Wednesday morning reported a 13% increase in profits for the first half of 2008, compared to January to June 2007: CHF104.8 million. Of that, CHF101.8 comes from increased passenger traffic, up 5.8% with freight traffic continuing to lag. A CHF2 million loss was recorded for the company's additional rail traffic, some two million additional passengers, during the Euro 2008 football championship. Extra hours related to the additional 4,700 trains were responsible for the loss.

The Geneva-Lausanne route accounts for one of the largest increases in passengers, up 10.8% for the six-month period, well above the national average but below the increases around Zurich and Bern, and strong traffic increases (24%) for the new Loetschberg tunnel trains.   

Incest discussion, resources group opens in Geneva

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The French organization AIWA (Association Internationale des Victimes d'Incest), which has several discussion groups that meet throughout in France, this week is opening one for the Pays de Gex area in Geneva. The group says it hopes to expand in Switzerland. Friday night, 5 September, the first discussion group will cover "Recognizing incest" (in French). The group organizes conferences and serves as an information centre.

Edipresse staff protest in Lausanne

Lausanne, Switzerland (24 Heures, Fre) - Some 150 staff from various Edipresse publications as well as other parts of the company, such as printers, on Monday took to the street in front of the publishing company's offices near the Lausanne train station to protest job cuts. The company, faced with a loss of advertising revenue of CHF10 million for the first six months of 2008, announced last week that 50 jobs will disappear and it warned that more cuts could follow.

Ringier restructures, Pillard returns to Lausanne

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Ringier, Switzerland's largest publisher, has completed a restructuring that puts greater emphasis on online and digital activities, with Marc Walder taking over the leadership of the company in Zurich.

Daniel Pillard

Daniel Pillard, interim head of the company for a year, returns to his post as director of Ringier for French-speaking Switzerland, a job he held for several years before being posted temporarily to Zurich. Ringier Group in 2007 had profits of CHF103 million and turnover of CHF146 billion, with its Swiss business accounting for the largest part of its profitability. It publishes more than 120 magazines and newspapers, including l'Hebdo, the French language news magazine.

Swiss GDP in 2007 strong despite unsteady world economy

Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - First figures in from the federal government show that the Swiss GDP (gross domestic product) in 2007 rose 3.3% compared to the previous year and 5.2% at current prices.

Kudelski skids on weak dollar

Lausanne, Switzerland (RSR, Fre) - Kudelski, world leader in digital access systems, was hit hard by the weak dollar in the first six months of the year and Friday reported a loss for the period of CHF39.8 million, compared to profits of CHF28.1m for the same period in 2007. The company says the loss is in line with expectations and the second half of the year should be profitable. It expects to end the year in the black with CHF5-10m.