Word: switzerland
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Marc Rich, the fugitive U.S. tax cheater famously pardoned by President Clinton earlier this year, has been back in the news--staging a boardroom coup to seize control of one of Switzerland's biggest property-management companies. This corporate drama brought another wave of unwanted attention to Zug, the picturesque and very private town where Rich works. But Zug has a lot more to offer than a chance to spot the elusive financier. Otherwise, why would 19,456 companies and subsidiaries locate offices there...
After centuries of living in photogenic poverty, the people of Zug decided in 1946 to turn their canton into a haven that would attract companies even from other parts of Switzerland. Today the 97,800 residents of the Zug canton, many of whom work in the corporate offices here, enjoy an average annual income of $40,000. Among them are at least six billionaires. Unemployment is virtually...
...maximum tax on corporate profits in Zug is 17.8%, as compared with 25% elsewhere in Switzerland, 18% in Liechtenstein and 39% in the U.S. "We offer not only fiscal conditions that are attractive to these companies but also an efficient, business-friendly infrastructure," says Franziska Holzgang, head of Zug's Economic Promotion Board. A company can be launched in Zug with little capital, registration fees are low, and the whole process can be completed within five days. The big banks and international airport of Zurich are only 14 miles to the north. And the work force in Zug is well...
...sunny Friday morning two summers ago, Daniel Vasella got quite a wake-up call. Outside his lakefront home near Zug, Switzerland, gigantic speakers blasted Wagner's Gotterdammerung loud enough to rattle the windows. From across the lake, several boats carrying protesters converged on his house. A helicopter delivered a barrel marked with a skull and crossbones to one of the boats. Baffled, Vasella watched as the barrel was ferried to shore and plunked on his lawn...
...vintage Vasella: cool-headed, personable, direct--adjectives that frequently crop up in descriptions of the drug executive. Vasella is exceptionally smooth in dealing with advocates for lower pharmaceutical prices as well as with regulators and lawmakers, whether in his native Switzerland or in the U.S., where he is embarked on a major expansion. He is fluent in German, French and English and says he can muddle through in Italian and Spanish. More important, he is fluent in many cultures, from the elaborate rituals of Japanese business to an American culture that is at once informal and legalistic. Despite his modest...