• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Swiss holding companies from the mid-nineteenth century to the early 1930s: the forerunners and subsequent waves of creations
  • Contributor: PAQUIER, SERGE
  • Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2001
  • Published in: Financial History Review, 8 (2001) 2, Seite 163-182
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1017/s0968565001000245
  • ISSN: 0968-5650; 1474-0052
  • Keywords: Finance ; History
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: In Switzerland, finance companies constituted the business group with the largest accumulation of capital of all joint-stock companies. This development began during the 1860s with respect to investment in gas, and accelerated from 1875 as a result of the activities of syndicates combining Swiss and foreign banks, first, in railways and, from the 1890s, in electricity. During the period 1910-14, domestic holding companies were established to aid the major Swiss industries of textiles, food and mechanical engineering. However, over the interwar years, international forces were once more dominant, leading to the establishment of both giant holding companies (related to the petrol and chemical industries), and small-scale companies, linked with capital flight to Switzerland.