The company's purpose is to operate a retail business. The company may acquire, develop, encumber, sell and manage licenses, patents and other intangible assets as well as real estate, establish subsidiaries and branches in Switzerland and abroad, participate in other companies in Switzerland and abroad, and conduct all business that is directly or indirectly related to its purpose. The company is part of a group and may consider the interests of the group in pursuing its corporate purpose. The company may conduct investment and lending transactions of any kind, provide guarantees, grant direct or indirect financing to group companies or third parties, including its direct or indirect shareholders and their direct or indirect subsidiaries, and provide collateral of any kind for liabilities of such other companies, including by way of pledges or fiduciary transfers of the company's assets or guarantees of any kind, whether for consideration or not. Furthermore, it may operate a liquidity equalization/concentration of net liquidity (cash pooling) with the aforementioned companies or join such a system, including periodic account settlement (zero balancing), also under preferential conditions without interest, excluding the company's profit motive and assuming cluster risks.