Siroop bankruptcy: Swisscom bears half the costs

"As part of the joint venture, the costs were split 50/50," Swisscom spokesman Armin Schädeli told the Handelszeitung. He does not want to comment on what that means exactly. Research shows that Siroop AG, which was dissolved at the beginning of the month, left behind a balance sheet loss of 140 million francs. The figures emerge from documents filed with the commercial register. Coop confirms that these document Siroop's operating business. According to the documents, the Coop-Swisscom joint venture posted a loss of 55 million francs in 2017 alone.

Swisscom spokesman Schädeli does not want to say to what extent this loss burdened Swisscom's result. According to Swisscom's annual report, half of the Siroop losses were consolidated by the telecom company. Accordingly, the group result would have been burdened with 27.5 million francs in 2017. In total, Swisscom's share of the reported Siroop loss amounts to 70 million francs.

Alex Kuprecht (SVP), a member of the Council of States from the canton of Schwyz, is now demanding clarification from the Federal Council. He already submitted an interpellation in Bern last week, through which he would like to learn more about Swisscom's losses. The fact that Swisscom Chairman Hansueli Loosli is also Chairman of Siroop partner Coop also speaks in favor of a clean investigation, says Kuprecht. The question arises as to what extent it is the task of a state-owned company to participate in such cooperations, he says.