The Company's purpose is the acquisition, holding, management (administration), financing, and sale of participations in other companies in Switzerland or abroad. The Company may establish branches and subsidiaries in Switzerland and abroad, hold participations in other companies, represent third parties, as well as carry out any commercial activity and conclude any type of agreement that may be acts to promote the purpose of the Company, or that are directly or indirectly related to it. The Company may acquire, hold, administer, encumber, sell real estate in Switzerland and abroad. Transactions prohibited by the Federal Law on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Persons Abroad (LAFE) are excluded. In pursuing its corporate purpose, the Company may take into account the interests of the Shareholders. In particular, the Company may grant loans or other direct or indirect financings, including those within the framework of cash pooling agreements (including zero balancing), to companies directly or indirectly controlled and to third parties, including its own direct or indirect shareholders and the companies directly or indirectly controlled by them; to secure the obligations contracted by them, the Company may provide guarantees or bonds of any kind, including pledges on the assets of the Company or fiduciary transfers of the same. All of this may take place even without consideration, on preferential terms, interest-free, by suppressing the profit-making purpose of the Company and/or assuming large risks (cluster risks).