ZURICH, April 12 (Reuters) – Roche Holding AG
sought on Thursday to persuade Illumina to discuss its
$6.7 billion bid for the genetics firm as a rebound for its key
cancer drug Avastin helped the Swiss drugmaker post solid
first-quarter sales.

Roche, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, said
first-quarter sales fell 1 percent to 11.03 billion Swiss francs
($12.05 billion), but rose 2 percent at constant exchange rates,
meeting the average analyst forecast in a Reuters poll.

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss bankers are on the defensive with their secretive industry under sustained attack for sheltering tax dodgers. Some cannot travel abroad for fear of arrest in tax investigations.

But the fur coats and expensive cars on display around the Paradeplatz square at the heart of Zurich’s financial district – as well as booming house prices – tell a different story: business is good in a city now ranked the world’s costliest.

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss bankers are on the defensive with their secretive industry under sustained attack for sheltering tax dodgers. Some cannot travel abroad for fear of arrest in tax investigations.

But the fur coats and expensive cars on display around the Paradeplatz square at the heart of Zurich’s financial district – as well as booming house prices – tell a different story: business is good in a city now ranked the world’s costliest.

ZURICH, March 19 (Reuters) – The chairman of Swiss private
bank Julius Baer will head a special committee dealing with a
U.S. tax probe after leaving his current role, underlining the
pressure Swiss banks are feeling from claims they helped wealthy
Americans dodge taxes.

Raymond Baer, a 52-year-old member of the bank’s founding
family who has been at the group almost 25 years and served as
chairman for nine, will become honorary chairman of the bank as
of its next shareholder meeting in April.

ZURICH, March 15 (Reuters) – The Swiss National Bank
doubled its growth forecast for 2012 on Thursday and said it was
determined to enforce its cap on the strong franc at 1.20 per
euro because it was helping stabilise the economy.

The central bank kept its interest rate target at 0-0.25
percent as expected and said it would maintain extremely high
liquidity on the money markets, though it dropped a reference to
targeting a three-month interbank-lending rate “close to zero”.

ZURICH, March 11 (Reuters) – Swiss voters rejected a
proposal to increase employees’ annual minimum paid holiday
entitlement to six from four weeks on Sunday after firms warned
it might hurt competitiveness and threaten jobs.

The initiative was put forward by trade union
Travail.Suisse, which argued that four weeks holiday was
insufficient because the pressure of work had increased so much
in recent decades, causing rising stress and health problems.