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Pierin Vincenz, former CEO of the Raiffeisen Group.
(sda) On Tuesday, the Zurich prosecutor’s office reported the allegations against Raiffeisen’s former boss, Pierin Vincenz. However, the accusation remains under lock and key for now. Since the information contained therein has already been made public, the Zurich District Court is now filing a criminal complaint.
The Zurich district court announced on Friday that there were indications that the duty of confidentiality that the prosecution had imposed on the parties involved in the process had been breached. Therefore, criminal charges will be brought against unknown persons.
In recent days, media reports have published details of the accusation, such as the amount of the sentence that the Public Ministry is demanding, or details of the criminal offenses that are imputed to the accused.
According to the district court, the indictment remains under lock and key “until shortly before the trial”, which will take place next year. Only then will it be delivered to the media that request it. An early release is not justified in the context of the presumption of innocence.
According to a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday, the main suspects are accused, among other things, of commercial fraud. The focus of the proceedings are Raiffeisen’s former boss Pierin Vincenz and Aduno’s former boss Beat Stocker.
A construction worker at a construction site in Kloten in the canton of Zurich.
(awp / sda) The situation in the Swiss domestic market has worsened due to the Corona crisis. UBS’s housing bubble index has risen significantly and is now in the bubble area.
Specifically, the so-called Swiss property bubble index rose in the third quarter of 2020 to 2.05 from 1.48 points in the previous quarter. The risk zone begins at an index point, and at two points there is talk of a housing bubble.
The increase was driven by the economic impact of the Corona crisis and therefore should be put into perspective, writes UBS in its message on Friday. However, strong price increases also contributed to the imbalance.
According to the study, the imbalances are now highly concentrated in the regions around the city of Zurich and central Switzerland. In these regions, the ratio of house prices to annual rents and household income is significantly higher than the Swiss average.
Price increases over the last ten years have also been clearly above average. However, according to the study, the regions of Pays d’Enhaut, Lugano and Saanen-Obersimmental are no longer in the danger zone.
For UBS real estate specialists, both the current price level and the dynamism of mortgage loans in the domestic market are unsustainable. But in parallel with the expected economic recovery, the housing bubble index should exit the bubble risk zone again significantly starting in 2021, it is assured. According to the forecast, the index would return to well below 1.50 from the second half of 2021.
The UBS Swiss Real Estate Bubble Index is made up of six sub-indices. These are “house prices at annual rents”, “house prices according to household income”, “construction activity according to gross domestic product (GDP)”, “house prices at consumer prices “,” mortgage volume based on household income “and” loan applications to buy to rent (investment property) “. .
(dpa) Lufthansa is beginning the first tests to screen all passengers for the corona virus before departure. Starting next Thursday (November 12), all passengers on individual flights between Munich and Hamburg will undergo a free rapid antigen test, as the company announced on Friday in Frankfurt. Alternatively, passengers can have a negative PCR test that is no more than 48 hours old or have their reservation changed on another flight free of charge. Test results should be available after 30 to 60 minutes.
According to its CEO Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa purchased 250,000 antigen tests to study the processes. Basically, the airline hopes to be able to offer more flight connections again, especially abroad, with the rapid tests. “Successful testing of full flights may be the key to revitalizing international air traffic,” said board member Christina Foerster. At the Lufthansa Group, rapid tests have already been tested on flights operated by the Austrian subsidiary between Berlin and Vienna.
Antigen tests provide faster results, but so far less accurate, than PCR tests. Spohr said that air traffic “does not want to take anything from anyone”, especially people in the health and education systems. But he is convinced that the pharmaceutical industry can quickly deliver significantly larger quantities of rapid tests than before.
(dpa) British low-cost carrier Easyjet is making fresh money in the Corona crisis by selling and leasing more planes. To strengthen its financial strength, the company sold another eleven A320 aircraft and then leased them for several years. According to information published on Friday, Easyjet earned 169.5 million dollars (145.64 million euros).
After the conclusion of this new lease agreement, Easyjet claims that it still has 141 vacant aircraft, representing about 41 percent of the fleet. The company last sold and leased planes in late October. Easyjet will continue to regularly check its liquidity position and examine financing options, it said.
In the fiscal year ending at the end of September, Easyjet suffered the first annual loss in its history due to the crown crisis and wants to forego a dividend. At the end of September, after numerous capital measures, the airline had cash reserves of around 2.3 billion pounds (2.53 billion euros) and was sitting on a mountain of debt of 1.1 billion pounds.
(awp / sda) Autumn is anything but golden for the Swiss tourism industry this year. As in summer, more local guests were on vacation in the mountainous regions. The absence of foreign guests could not make up for this, writes the Swiss Tourism Association on Friday.
According to a survey by the industry association, 55 percent of foreign guests who stayed overnight were absent. The 15-20 percent more Swiss guests didn’t help either. Business tourism in cities was also severely affected. This was compounded by unfavorable weather and increased travel restrictions in Europe, leading to a weaker result for October than for September.
Meanwhile, the season is going well for apartment and vacation home owners. Interhome reports that the fall season was good. In the past five months, Swiss customer bookings have doubled compared to the previous year, an Interhome spokeswoman said.
(dpa) Lighting company Osram and its Austrian majority shareholder AMS are in the red. Both companies reported significant losses for the latest quarter on Friday, and AMS’s figures for the first time also include results from the new Munich subsidiary. However, both companies are optimistic about the future.
Osram boss Olaf Berlien emphasized: “As expected, there were gradual improvements in most business areas over the course of the fourth quarter,” he said. Also, there are good incoming orders in the major auto business for the current financial new year. Osram’s fiscal year differs from the calendar year and runs from October to September.
However, compared to the same period last year, Osram’s current earnings figures look slightly better, even if the loss from continuing operations in the fourth quarter was significant at € 89 million after tax and € 267 million euros in the entire financial year.
AMS also fell into the red in the third quarter. In the second quarter, the Austrians, for whom the fiscal year and the calendar year coincide, were barely able to maintain their gains. The first-time consolidation of the new subsidiary also contributed to the clear deficit of € 125 million in continuing business. Together, the companies posted good sales of 1.2 billion euros.
AMS now wants to quickly integrate Osram even further. After an extraordinary general meeting in Osram on Tuesday confirmed a P&L transfer agreement with the Austrians, this should be implemented by the end of the year. Osram expects operational activities to be combined in early 2021.
According to Osram boss Olaf Berlien, it will be a long time before the so-called “squeeze-out” occurs, in which the remaining shareholders will be forced to leave the company. With current stocks, according to the latest released figures, AMS is just over 70 percent, not even a squeeze is possible. It will take years to get there, especially since there is currently little reason for the remaining shareholders to sell their shares.
Berlien, therefore, assumes that Osram will hold his own annual press conferences in the next two years and possibly beyond. As for his own future, he said that he intends to fulfill his contract, which is still in effect for two and a half years. “I am very happy to be there,” he said. Only on Thursday did Osram announce the departure of chief technology officer Stefan Kampmann and the reduction of the executive board from three to two.
Austrian sensor specialist AMS succeeded last year after a long struggle with a takeover bid for Osram. However, the agreement was only implemented in the summer after approval by the competition authorities.
Berlien said of Osram’s loss of independence that the company had only been truly independent for seven years in its more than 100-year history. We are now well prepared for a common future with AMS.
