Roche, Novartis and Nestlé at the top; UBS behind them after the Credit Suisse takeover; then Glencore with the highest revenue of all — a current stocktake of the eleven groups that move the Swiss exchange, the labour market and tax receipts the most, with figures as of May 2026 and notes for investors from Ukraine and Russia.
Looked at from the outside, Switzerland tends to be reduced to banks and chocolate. Both are real, but the picture is broader. Three pharmaceutical giants in Basel, a food group in Vevey, a reinsurer in Zurich, a commodity trader in Baar and a handful of industrial firms sit within a forty-kilometre radius. Together they account for more than two thirds of the SMI market capitalisation — and a sizeable share of that is held by families, foundations or shareholder pools that have been in place for over a hundred years.
This article updates an older list that still circulates online: Credit Suisse, ACE Limited, ABB as a robotics example. Credit Suisse has not been an independent entity since 19 March 2023. ACE has been called Chubb since 2016 and has moved its headquarters out of Switzerland. ABB sold its robotics division to SoftBank in 2024. Anyone trying to read the Swiss market today needs current figures — and a few pointers on a sector structure that has shifted noticeably over the past three years.
The numbers below come from the annual reports for 2024 and 2025, SIX market-capitalisation data from May 2026, and headcount figures from each company's sustainability report. Market capitalisations fluctuate — the order of the top three can change from one week to the next. The values used here refer to 19 May 2026.
Why Switzerland?
Why these groups chose Switzerland rarely comes down to a single reason. Several factors overlap: a political system that does not know about wholesale change every four years; a tax regime that, since the STAF reform of 2020, no longer treats holding structures as a special case but still keeps them attractive; a labour market combining high productivity with a pragmatic dismissal regime (Art. 335 ff. of the Code of Obligations); and a geographical position that puts Frankfurt, Milan and Munich within two hours.
What the location actually offers
- Effective corporate tax: 11.9–21.0 per cent depending on the canton (Zug 11.85 per cent; Geneva 14.0 per cent; Zurich 19.7 per cent). Federal share: 8.5 per cent on profit after tax.
- OECD minimum tax of 15 per cent in force since 2024, offset by the QDMTT — the competitive advantage has shrunk but not disappeared.
- Double-tax agreements with more than 100 states, including Ukraine (since 2002) and Russia (the 1995 DTA is in practice difficult to apply because of sanctions package 12).
- Stable currency: in real terms the Swiss franc has appreciated against the euro by about 25 per cent since 2015.
- Highly qualified workforce: ETH Zurich (ranked 7th globally, QS 2025), EPFL (25th), two medical faculties whose curricula are internationally recognised.
What often gets forgotten: Switzerland is no longer a tax haven. Anyone setting up a holding after 2018 could still draw on cantonal status, but not on the full tax exemption of the 1990s. The STAF reform, in force since 1 January 2020, abolished the holding privilege and replaced it with a patent box, an R&D deduction and a reduced profit-tax rate on qualifying equity. For Ukrainian entrepreneurs who relocated assets after February 2022, that reform was not the deciding factor — legal certainty and a clear line against Russian sanctions were.
Roche — pharma from Basel
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG was founded in 1896 by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche. It is still family-controlled today — the Hoffmann and Oeri descendants together control around 45 per cent of the voting shares through the Hoffmann/Oeri shareholder pool. That ownership structure explains why Roche, unlike Novartis, has not been on the receiving end of regular takeover rumours.
The two divisions are Pharma (about 80 per cent of revenue) and Diagnostics (20 per cent). The group has three blockbusters in its portfolio — Tecentriq, Hemlibra and Vabysmo — whose patents run until 2030–2034. Diagnostics, which became globally familiar through the COVID-19 PCR test, is the market leader in laboratory automation through its Cobas systems.
Key figures for 2024: revenue of CHF 60.5 bn, core operating profit of CHF 22.9 bn, 103,249 employees. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 328 bn — rank 1 in the SMI. Since mid-2025 Roche has been the largest pharmaceutical group in Europe and the third largest in the world after Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.
Registered office: Grenzacherstrasse 124, 4070 Basel. Legal form: Aktiengesellschaft, registered in the commercial register of Basel-Stadt. Website: roche.com.
Novartis — the second pharma pole of Basel
Created in 1996 through the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz, Novartis is the younger of the two Basel pharmaceutical companies — though its predecessor firms reach back to 1758 (J.R. Geigy). Unlike Roche, Novartis has no controlling shareholder family. That gives the group more strategic room to manoeuvre, but also makes it more exposed to activist pressure.
Three strategic moves define the recent past: the spin-off of Sandoz (generics) at the end of 2023 as a separately listed company; the divestment of the Alcon eye-care business back in 2019; and the sell-down of the Roche stake (worth more than CHF 11.9 bn) by 2018. What remains focuses on innovative therapies — oncology (Kisqali, Pluvicto), cardiology (Entresto, Leqvio), immunology (Cosentyx).
Key figures for 2024: revenue of USD 50.3 bn, core operating profit of USD 17.3 bn, 75,594 employees. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 272 bn — rank 2 in the SMI. Worth noting: Kisqali has been produced since 2024 at the Sandoz-acquired site in Stein (Aargau) — a reminder that, even after the spin-off, the two groups remain intertwined.
Registered office: Lichtstrasse 35, 4056 Basel. Website: novartis.com.
Nestlé — food from Vevey
Henri Nestlé developed an infant food based on milk powder in Vevey in 1867 — his first customers were mothers from the local hospital whose babies could not tolerate breast milk. Over the next century the business grew into the largest food group in the world. Today Nestlé operates in 188 countries and runs around 2,000 brands — from Nescafé and Maggi to Nespresso and KitKat.
Strategically, Nestlé has spent the 2020s shedding lower-margin units: the US water business was sold to One Rock Capital in 2021; the L'Oréal stake has been wound down step by step; the ice-cream business was placed in a joint venture with PAI under the Froneri label. What remains is a portfolio with strong margins — coffee (about a quarter of revenue) and pet food (Purina, also roughly a quarter).
Key figures for 2024: revenue of CHF 91.4 bn, operating margin of 17.2 per cent, 277,000 employees. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 256 bn — rank 3 in the SMI. The share has underperformed since 2023 — chiefly because of the Perrier water business, where French authorities exposed undeclared UV treatment and deep-bed filtration practices in early 2024.
Registered office: Avenue Nestlé 55, 1800 Vevey, canton of Vaud. Website: nestle.com.
UBS — the last remaining Swiss large bank
UBS in its current form was created in 1998 through the merger of Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft and Schweizerischer Bankverein. On Sunday 19 March 2023 it also took over Credit Suisse — in an emergency deal orchestrated by the Federal Council and FINMA, with a share swap valued at CHF 3 bn (about CHF 0.76 per CS share). The Swiss National Bank made up to CHF 200 bn in liquidity available; the federal government provided a loss guarantee of up to CHF 9 bn.
By spring 2026 the integration is largely complete: Swiss retail contracts were fully migrated in March 2026; the CS brand is being phased out. What remains is a bank with more than CHF 5,700 bn in assets under management (Q4 2025), making it by some distance the largest wealth manager in the world — ahead of Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. UBS employs around 109,000 people, 32,500 of them in Switzerland.
UBS remains controversial for several reasons. First: its balance sheet of around CHF 1,700 bn is roughly twice Swiss GDP — politicians and supervisors decided in 2025 to tighten capital requirements significantly (Federal Council, message of 26 June 2025). Second: bonuses and pay policy have drawn parliamentary motions for years. Third: cleaning up the CS legacy has required substantial provisions for ongoing proceedings (the Mozambique scandal, Suisse Secrets, Greensill).
Key figures for 2024: revenues of USD 48.4 bn, net profit of USD 5.1 bn. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 120 bn — rank 4 in the SMI. Registered office: Bahnhofstrasse 45, 8001 Zurich (with a second head office in Basel at Aeschenvorstadt 1). Website: ubs.com.
Zurich Insurance Group — insurance with a global footprint
Founded in 1872 as Versicherungs-Verein, Zurich is active in more than 200 countries today — commercial and retail insurance, life, reinsurance through its subsidiary Cover-More, and the Farmers business in the United States. Mario Greco (CEO since 2016) has rebalanced the group towards less volatile lines, reflected in an SST ratio of 253 per cent at the end of 2024 — one of the highest in the industry.
Key figures: insurance revenue of USD 47.6 bn (2024), net profit of USD 5.8 bn, 56,000 employees. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 84 bn — rank 5 in the SMI. The share has paid an uninterrupted dividend since 1992, a record that places Zurich alongside Nestlé as one of the most reliable Swiss dividend names.
Registered office: Mythenquai 2, 8002 Zurich. Website: zurich.com.
ABB — electrical engineering and automation
ABB was formed in 1988 by merging Sweden's Asea with Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie. The dual Swedish-Swiss character is still visible — the chair and the main shareholder (Investor AB of the Wallenberg family) sit in Stockholm, while operations are based in Zurich-Oerlikon. Four divisions carry the business: Electrification (around 40 per cent of revenue), Motion, Process Automation and Robotics & Discrete Automation.
The robotics division — historically the public face of the company — was sold to SoftBank in April 2024 for USD 2.5 bn. ABB has thus left behind the older equation of its name with industrial robots and now concentrates on energy and drive technology. Key figures for 2024: revenue of USD 32.9 bn, operational EBITA of USD 6.4 bn, 105,000 employees in 100 countries.
Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 81 bn — rank 6 in the SMI. Registered office: Affolternstrasse 44, 8050 Zurich. Website: abb.com.
Richemont — luxury from Geneva
Compagnie Financière Richemont was spun out in 1988 by South African entrepreneur Johann Rupert. Today it owns Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, A. Lange & Söhne and a dozen further brands in jewellery and watches. Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP) was sold to Mytheresa in 2024 — a tidy-up after years of losses in the online business.
Key figures for the 2024/25 financial year (to 31 March 2025): revenue of EUR 21.4 bn (down 4 per cent year on year), operating profit of EUR 4.5 bn, 36,000 employees. The drop mainly reflects weakness in China and price pressure on the lower-priced US consumer. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 76 bn — rank 7 in the SMI.
Registered office: 50 Chemin de la Chênaie, 1293 Bellevue (canton of Geneva). Website: richemont.com.
Sika — construction chemistry from Baar
Sika began in Zurich in 1910 with a mortar sealant called Sika-1, designed to keep the Gotthard rail tunnels watertight. Today the company supplies construction chemistry for roughly every second high-rise built worldwide — adhesives, sealants, concrete admixtures, floor coatings. Its history also features a Swiss takeover saga: between 2014 and 2018, former majority shareholder Saint-Gobain fought a legal battle with the Burkard family that ended with Sika staying independent.
Key figures for 2024: revenue of CHF 11.76 bn, EBITDA of CHF 2.53 bn, 33,000 employees in 102 countries. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 39 bn — rank 8 in the SMI. Sika is one of those Swiss companies that grows organically without takeover dramas and keeps moving into adjacent niches (refurbishment, energy-efficient renovation, low-carbon concrete).
Registered office: Zugerstrasse 50, 6340 Baar. Website: sika.com.
Glencore — the heavyweight with the largest revenue and the smallest market cap
Glencore trades coal, copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc and a few dozen other commodities — and produces some of them itself. The group was set up in Baar in 1974 as Marc Rich + Co AG; after the affair surrounding its founder (US tax proceedings, pardon by Bill Clinton in 2001) management bought the firm in 1994, renamed it Glencore and floated it in London in 2011.
Glencore comes only tenth on the market-capitalisation league table but, measured by revenue, it is by far the largest Swiss company: CHF 217 bn in revenue in 2024 (USD 246 bn) — nearly four times Nestlé's. The reason lies in the business model: commodity traders run on high volumes and thin margins. Net profit for 2024 was USD 4.3 bn, with 152,700 employees (including contractors).
Politically, Glencore has repeatedly come in for criticism — bribery allegations in Africa and Latin America led to settlement payments of USD 1.5 bn with US and UK authorities in 2022. In connection with the war in Ukraine, Glencore has reduced its stakes in Russian energy firms (En+ Group, Rosneft) but has not divested them in full.
Registered office: Baarermattstrasse 3, 6340 Baar (canton of Zug). Website: glencore.com.
Swiss Re — reinsurance at Mythenquai
Swiss Re was founded in 1863 as Schweizerische Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft. Reinsurance means that primary insurers transfer their peak risks (earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics) to Swiss Re in exchange for premium payments. The group is the world's second-largest reinsurer after Munich Re.
The industry runs in pronounced cycles: after large-loss events (Hurricane Helene 2024, California wildfires 2025) premiums rise, which lifts return on equity for reinsurers. Swiss Re posted net profit of USD 3.2 bn in 2024 on gross premiums of USD 47 bn.
Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 37 bn — rank 10 in the SMI. 14,000 employees, 2,200 of them in Switzerland. Registered office: Mythenquai 50/60, 8002 Zurich. Website: swissre.com.
Holcim — cement and building materials
Holcim, descended from the 1912-founded Holderbank Financière Glaris (Eternit group), became LafargeHolcim through its 2015 merger with France's Lafarge and was renamed Holcim in 2021. In June 2025 the group spun off its entire North American business (Amrize, NYSE-listed) — one of the largest Swiss spin-offs in years.
What remains focuses on Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Holcim is the world's largest cement producer — an industrial line under particular pressure to decarbonise (cement production accounts for about 7 per cent of global CO₂ emissions). Holcim has launched the ECOPlanet range and plans to have around 65 per cent of its portfolio in the low-carbon variant by 2030.
Key figures for 2024 (before the Amrize spin-off): revenue of CHF 26.4 bn, recurring EBIT of CHF 4.8 bn, 56,000 employees. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 35 bn. Registered office: Zürcherstrasse 156, 8645 Jona (canton of St. Gallen). Website: holcim.com.
Lonza — pharmaceutical contract manufacturing from Basel
Lonza was founded in 1897 as an electric works in Gampel (Valais), drawing power from the river Lonza for carbide production. Today the activity has been almost entirely re-engineered: Lonza is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) that produces biologics and active substances for the big pharma groups — mRNA platforms, monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene therapies.
In October 2024 Lonza paid USD 1.2 bn to acquire Genentech's site in Vacaville (California) — one of the largest biologics production plants in the world. That signals how strategically central US contract manufacturing has become, partly because of the Biosecure Act (restrictions on Chinese CDMOs).
Key figures for 2024: revenue of CHF 6.57 bn, EBITDA margin of 28.5 per cent, 17,500 employees. Market capitalisation on 19 May 2026: around CHF 45 bn — rank 9 in the SMI. Registered office: Münchensteinerstrasse 38, 4002 Basel. Website: lonza.com.
The second tier — what lies behind the heavyweights
Looking only at the top 10 misses the breadth of the Swiss market. Schindler (lifts, revenue of CHF 11 bn), Geberit (sanitary fittings), Givaudan (flavours and fragrances, CHF 7.4 bn, global market leader), Adecco (staffing), Logitech (computer peripherals), Bucherer (watch retail, taken over by Rolex in 2023), Swatch Group (Omega, Tissot, Breguet) — all are world leaders in their niches, mostly mid-sized and often family-controlled.
Alongside them sits a large group of unlisted companies that show up in no ranking but matter a great deal in economic terms: Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC, 200,000 employees worldwide, headquartered in Geneva — the largest container line in the world), Rolex (held by a family foundation, around CHF 10 bn in revenue), Cargill International (US subsidiary with Swiss head office in Geneva), Mercuria (energy trading, Geneva), Ingka Holding (the IKEA parent, formally domiciled in Leiden but with a strong Swiss presence). The list is not exhaustive — it gives a sense of the depth of the unlisted segment.
A particularity: many of these are cooperatives or foundations, not classical limited companies. Migros (CHF 31 bn in revenue 2024, about 100,000 employees) is a cooperative with over 2.3 million members and, measured by headcount, the country's largest private employer. Coop (CHF 35 bn in revenue, similar headcount) sits alongside it. Neither appears in any market-cap ranking, because their units are not listed.
Sector concentration — where Switzerland sits at the front
The sector mix is anything but random. Pharma (Roche, Novartis, Lonza and several mid-cap specialists such as Galderma and Roivant) makes up over 35 per cent of SMI market capitalisation. Finance and insurance (UBS, Zurich, Swiss Re, Partners Group) account for around 20 per cent. Food (Nestlé) alone is 14 per cent. Industrial groups (ABB, Sika, Holcim) together are about 12 per cent. The remainder splits between luxury, construction chemistry and individual specialists.
Two consequences follow. First, the SMI is pharma-heavy; anyone buying the SMI is essentially buying pharma plus a bit of banking and insurance. Second, political or regulatory shocks in pharma (US price controls, the Inflation Reduction Act, EU pharma legislation) hit the Swiss economy disproportionately.
From the perspective of an investor in Ukraine or Russia, that concentration is paradoxically reassuring: the big Swiss names are so diversified internationally that they barely depend on any single market. Roche earns roughly 50 per cent of its revenue in the United States, 25 per cent in Europe and 25 per cent in Asia and the rest of the world. Nestlé has a similar profile. Holding Swiss equities effectively means holding global companies with a Swiss legal seat.
Legal form and cantonal seat
All eleven groups described here are organised as Aktiengesellschaft (Art. 620 ff. of the Code of Obligations). The Aktiengesellschaft is by far the commonest legal form for medium-sized and large Swiss firms. For small companies and start-ups the GmbH (Art. 772 ff. CO) dominates — it offers limited liability but with a lower minimum capital (CHF 20,000 instead of CHF 100,000).
The cantonal angle: four of the eleven largest groups are based in Basel's pharma cluster (Roche, Novartis, Lonza, plus Bachem, Galderma, Tecan). Zurich is home to UBS, Zurich Insurance, Swiss Re, ABB — the finance and industrial centre. Zug — by population the smallest canton — hosts Glencore, Sika, Roche Diagnostics International, Siemens Smart Infrastructure and more than 30,000 further company seats thanks to low taxes. Vevey and Vaud have Nestlé; Geneva hosts the luxury cluster (Richemont, Rolex) and the commodity traders (Cargill, Mercuria, Trafigura).
Notes for Ukrainian and Russian investors
Anyone holding or planning to acquire Swiss equities from Ukraine or Russia, whether as a private or corporate investor, should take note of four points in 2026.
Sanctions and KYC
Swiss custodian banks (UBS, Pictet, Julius Baer, Vontobel) have applied the federal sanctions regime (SR 946.231.176.72) consistently since March 2022. Anyone holding portfolio assets above CHF 100,000 with a Russian passport and residence in Russia must produce extended documentation — origin of the funds, beneficial owner, links to sanctioned persons or sectors. Ukrainian nationals are not subject to sanctions but, depending on the source of funds (war damages, assets brought out of Russia), will go through their own KYC process.
Double taxation
The Switzerland-Ukraine DTA (BBl 2002 7041, in force since 26 February 2003) provides for withholding tax on dividends of 5 per cent (for shareholdings above 20 per cent) or 15 per cent — fully creditable against Ukrainian tax. The Switzerland-Russia DTA (BBl 1996 III 1) remains formally in force, but is difficult to apply in practice: Russia unilaterally suspended its application in 2023; Switzerland followed suit in 2024. Russian taxpayers therefore face the full Swiss withholding tax of 35 per cent on dividends, with no reclaim available.
Direct investment vs. ETF
Anyone entering the Swiss market can buy single stocks directly (Roche, Novartis, Nestlé via SIX) or use ETFs such as iShares SMI (CH0008899764). Direct investment only makes tax sense from CHF 50,000–100,000 per position, because ETFs usually handle withholding-tax reclaim better. For Swiss residents: realised capital gains on private assets are tax-free (Art. 16 para. 3 DBG) — a material advantage compared with Germany (25 per cent Kapitalertragsteuer) or France (30 per cent flat tax).
Swiss residence
Ukrainian nationals on Schutzstatus S have been allowed to invest in the equity market since March 2022 — without a permit, provided no sanctions are touched. Income is subject to ordinary income tax; Swiss dividends are fully creditable. Russian nationals living in Switzerland on a B or C permit are not affected by most sanctions, but should check their custodian bank's KYC requirements, because many banks take a conservative approach where there is any link to Russia.
Practical note
Sobiera Legal Consulting advises Ukrainian and Russian clients on building wealth in Switzerland — opening accounts and securities portfolios, tax structuring, succession planning, residence matters (B/C permit, Schutzstatus S). We also support investors in setting up Swiss Aktiengesellschaften and GmbHs, from choice of canton to entry in the commercial register.
Further sources
- SIX Swiss Exchange — SMI Index (real-time capitalisations)
- Wikipedia EN — Swiss Market Index
- Federal Department of Finance — UBS-CS takeover (chronology)
- FTA — Switzerland-Ukraine DTA
- SECO — Russia sanctions, updated lists
- Swiss National Bank — monetary and currency statistics
- Roche Annual Report 2024, Novartis Annual Report 2024, Nestlé Annual Review 2024, UBS Annual Report 2024 (directly on each group's website)
- Image sources (all Wikimedia Commons):
- Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich — Leonhard Lenz, CC0
- Roche Tower, Basel — Taxiarchos228, Free Art License
- Novartis Pavillon, Basel — Alexandre Pichard, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Nestlé HQ, Vevey — Nestlé via Flickr, CC BY 2.0
- UBS HQ, Zürich — JaierRT, CC0
- Zurich Insurance, Mythenquai Zürich — Marco Zanoli (Sidonius), CC BY-SA 3.0
- ABB, Baden — Hans Rudolf Baumann, CC BY-SA 3.0
- IWC Schaffhausen (Richemont-Tochter) — Mattnac, CC0
- Sika AG, Logo — Sika AG, Public domain
- Glencore HQ, Baar — Paradise Chronicle, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Swiss Re Campus, Mythenquai Zürich — Birrer Photography, CC BY 4.0
- Holcim, Eclépens — Roland Zumbühl, picswiss.ch, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Lonza-Hochhaus, Basel — Wladyslaw Sojka, FAL