The company's purpose is to provide financial, management and consulting services and to carry out and broker financial transactions of all kinds, as well as to buy and sell participations. The company may establish branches, participate in other companies in Switzerland and abroad, acquire or merge with similar or related companies, acquire or sell real estate, securities, patents and other intellectual property rights, and enter into any business and conclude any contracts that are suitable to promote the purpose of the company or are directly or indirectly related to it. The company may grant loans or other financing to its direct and indirect parent companies and shareholders, as well as their direct or indirect subsidiaries, and enter into security transactions of all kinds, including guarantees, pledges, global assignments, security transfers, security assignments and indemnification agreements for affiliated companies and third parties, even if these financing or security transactions are in their exclusive interest and are free of charge. Furthermore, the company may conclude cash pooling agreements with its direct and indirect parent companies and their direct or indirect subsidiaries, or operate a liquidity adjustment/concentration of net liquidity (cash pooling) or join such an arrangement, including periodic account balancing. This also applies without consideration, on preferential terms, without interest, excluding the company's profit motive and assuming cluster risks.