Axpo bosses do not receive any bonuses
The six-strong management received bonuses of over 2.53 million Swiss francs last year.
kca.
Due to political pressure, Axpo’s management decided not to pay more than 2.5 million Swiss francs. This reported the “Sunday Newspaper” in an online report on Saturday. Axpo CEO Christoph Brand and Aargau government councilor Stephan Attiger confirmed this to the newspaper. The canton of Aargau is the second largest co-owner of the electricity company.
Axpo has placed itself under the federal rescue package and can borrow up to four billion francs from the federal government to avert bankruptcy if the electricity company runs out of liquidity due to the increase in electricity prices. In this context, political pressure has increased over the past few days, which is why the Axpo management decided “to waive bonus payments if we draw on the credit line and until the federal money is then repaid,” quoted the newspaper as saying, Axpo CEO Christoph Fire.
A lot of money is involved: according to the Axpo annual report, CEO Christoph Brand received a fixed salary of 629,000 francs for last year and an additional bonus of 585,000 francs. In total, the bonuses for the six-strong management team amounted to CHF 2.53 million.
Gesamtmetall boss: Employees should help companies to save
Thermal analysis photo of an apartment in Marktoberdorf, Germany, February 02, 2022.
(dpa) In the event of a gas shortage, the President of the German Employers’ Association Gesamtmetall, Stefan Wolf, relies on the willingness of employees to accommodate them. “I believe that there are many employees who try to save the company electricity and thus costs and secure their jobs by working from home,” said Wolf of the German Press Agency. “I expect that too.”
“We won’t know how dramatic the situation will be until autumn, when it’s clear whether Putin will turn off the gas completely,” said Wolf. He fears that the Russian President “will do it and it will hit us hard”. Then you have to pull out all the stops. The companies would have done everything that goes to savings. With temperatures in offices, however, they are bound by the workplace ordinance. “You should think about whether you change the workplace ordinance again and we can go down to 18 degrees,” said Wolf. Currently, 19 to 20 degrees are set as the minimum value in work rooms in which most people sit – depending on the difficulty of the work.
“Mr. Wolf will certainly prefer to see his production staff in his factories,” said IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann of the German Press Agency. He also has the greatest doubts that it is really more energy-efficient if a large number of employees work at home and consume electricity and heat energy there, said Hofmann. “And it’s about saving energy in a crisis and not about saving for the company.” In addition, switching off and reheating larger buildings consumes more energy than heating them up. “More than doubts are appropriate here,” said Hofmann.
People would have to rethink, demanded Wolf. “We have to think about how we can even keep the prosperity that we have.” So far, it has always been about permanently increasing prosperity. “We will have less available and will have to reduce our claims,” said Wolf. He is firmly convinced that you can get through this crisis: “It will certainly not be 2023, but maybe 2024 or 2025.” And then there will be something to distribute again.
Due to concerns about possible energy bottlenecks, savings targets came into force at the beginning of the month, which are intended to reduce consumption over the next six months. For workplaces in the private sector, the ordinance does not stipulate that room temperatures in offices, for example, have to be reduced. However, it is made possible for employers to heat less in the commercial sector with legal certainty and have the opportunity to follow the example of the public sector. This is the basis for voluntary commitments by companies and company agreements to save energy.
UBS: Problems with Mastercard payments due to technical problems
The UBS branch in Basel.
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UBS customers who want to pay with their Mastercard are currently facing difficulties. In some cases, there were problems with payments with credit and prepaid cards from Mastercard, the major bank confirmed on Friday afternoon on request.
Affected customers were advised to switch to alternative means of payment. The reason for the problems was a technical fault, UBS said. We are working flat out on a solution.
On the website «All disturbances» numerous users had reported problems with Mastercard credit cards since Thursday afternoon.
Citi wins $500 million miswire lawsuit
In the spectacular case of the wrong transfer, Citigroup was right after all.
(dpa) The major American bank Citigroup has prevailed in the legal dispute over the reimbursement of half a billion dollars that was accidentally transferred. A Manhattan appeals court overturned the lower court’s verdict on Thursday, ruling that the financial group was entitled to the money. The recipients should have been aware that the transfer was a glitch, the judges reasoned.
The case caused a stir in August 2020: Citi, on behalf of the cosmetics manufacturer Revlon, accidentally paid a loan of almost $ 900 million in full to creditors – hedge funds and other professional investors – which was actually only due in 2023. Interest payments of only $7.8 million would have been due. Since only some of the lenders returned the money, a legal battle ensued for around $500 million.
Citigroup can breathe a sigh of relief after the appeal verdict, but the mishap should be remembered as an embarrassing chapter. The bank blamed human error, but the mishap brought it a lot of ridicule and malice, and not just on Wall Street. In the first instance, Citi suffered a defeat. At the time, the judge ruled that it was irrational to assume that a highly developed financial group would make a bad transfer of this magnitude.
Nord Stream 2 gets a grace period
The cantonal court of the canton of Zug has granted Nord Stream 2 AG an extension of the debt restructuring moratorium by 4 months.
(Reuters/esb.) The Zug, Switzerland-based unit of Russian gas giant Gazprom, Nord Stream 2 AG, has received a temporary extension of its debt restructuring moratorium. As the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce announced on Thursday, the Cantonal Court of the Canton of Zug has granted the company an extension of the debt restructuring moratorium by 4 months until January 10, 2023. The extension begins on September 10th.
In the case of a debt restructuring moratorium, a court first grants a company with payment difficulties a provisional moratorium. At the same time, the court enacted measures to ensure the preservation of any remaining assets. With the help of the administrator, the prospects of a composition agreement are to be examined. In May of this year, the court had granted a provisional debt restructuring moratorium for the first time, which was valid until September 10th. This deadline has now been extended by a further four months.
Nord Stream 2 is a subsidiary of the Russian gas group Gazprom and is headquartered in Zug. The company completed the $11 billion project to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany last year. But in February, Germany halted the pipeline after severing ties with Moscow ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and after the United States imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2. As a result, the company got into financial difficulties.
Unemployment in Switzerland remains very low at 2 percent
tsf. The Swiss labor market remains very robust. In August, the unemployment rate remained at 2 percent. This is surprisingly low, since the number of unemployed tends to rise after the summer holidays, when university and school leavers are looking for jobs. As the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) announced on Thursday, 91,372 unemployed were registered at the regional employment centers (RAV) at the end of August, which is 102 fewer than in the previous month. Compared to the same month last year, unemployment fell by 34,983 people (-27.7 percent).
Youth unemployment (15 to 24 year olds) rose by 20.7 percent to 9,761. Compared to the same month last year, this corresponds to a decrease of 29.3 percent.
The number of unemployed aged 50-64 fell by 2.6 percent to 27,566 people. Compared to the same month last year, this corresponds to a decrease of 27.5 percent.
A total of 161,394 job seekers were registered, 1,921 fewer than in the previous month. Compared to the same period of the previous year, this number fell by 24.7 percent.
In June, 2893 people were affected by short-time work, 2659 fewer (-47.9%) than in the previous month. The number of affected companies fell by 308 units (-32.1 percent) to 652. The lost working hours decreased by 137,025 (-44.9 percent) to 167,978 hours.
According to preliminary information from the unemployment insurance funds, the number of people who had exhausted their right to unemployment benefits in the course of June 2022 was 4,357 people.
Volatile financial markets weigh on Helvetia’s result
Feb. Insurer Helvetia reported lower net profit in the first half of this year. Earnings after taxes fell by 16 percent to CHF 219.5 million. The main reason for this was the difficult development on the financial markets.
In the first half of the year, the Group’s result from financial investments and real estate fell from CHF 872.3 million in the same period of the previous year to CHF 253.5 million. The turbulence on the stock markets meant that the equity of the Helvetia Group fell by 29 percent to CHF 4.47 billion. With a solvency ratio (SST) of 280 percent as of mid-2022, the company is still excellently capitalized, Helvetia announced. The rating agency S&P rates the company’s creditworthiness with the grade «A+».
Helvetia’s business volume fell by around 2 percent to around CHF 6.8 billion in the reporting period. Currency-adjusted, however, it rose by 1.1 percent, the insurer said. In non-life insurance, there was currency-adjusted growth of 6.6 percent to CHF 4.17 billion. This business was the biggest growth driver, said Helvetia.
The financial markets also weighed heavily on Helvetia’s key business figures, as was largely expected, said Georg Marti, analyst at Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB). However, the insurer’s conclusion shows a very solid operational development, especially in non-life insurance, which is showing significant growth. Life insurance is also showing good development for products without guarantees.