At yesterday’s General Meeting of the SIS Group, Christoph Ammann stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Directors. As he stood down, he called for immediate and concerted action in terms of governance and structures in order to maintain the technology and cost leadership of the so-called Swiss Value Chain.
Ammann emphasised technology and cost as the keys to the success of the Swiss Value Chain, and particularly for the post-trading services provided by SIS. He called for a continued effort to actively promote innovativeness and efficiency of the market infrastructure in order to maintain Switzerland’s competitiveness among global financial market places. Decisions regarding strategic realignment must take into account the entire Value Chain as well as the particular situation of the Swiss financial centre and must be made and implemented by a single authority, he said.
Ammann sees an immediate need for action in terms of governance, ownership structures and the business models of the three infrastructure providers in Switzerland to prevent conflicts of interest from hampering innovation. According to Ammann, there is also a risk of the entire Value Chain being jeopardised by partial optimisation, individual interests or one-sided strategic decisions, which could seriously compromise the appeal of the Swiss financial centre in future.
Dr Romeo Lacher, a Member of the Management Committee, Private Banking and Global Head of Operations of Credit Suisse, was elected as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors. He has been a member of the SIS Group’s Board of Directors since spring 2005. Andreas Amschwand, a Member of the Group Managing Board of UBS, is the new Vice Chairman.
Peter Sami, Chief Executive Officer of the SIS Group, noted that, despite extraordinary expenditure of CHF 7 million due to the merger of the SIS and Telekurs computer centres and price reductions of CHF 23 million, the Group’s profit still increased by 4% to CHF 29.6 million. Further price reductions of around CHF 14 million have already been implemented in the current business year.