The new legal status of the two companies is a consequence of the revised postal legislation adopted by the Swiss Parliament in 2010. As a result of the conversion, Swiss Post will obtain the modern structures it needs to carry out its varied tasks. Swiss Post Ltd will still be owned entirely by the Confederation, and PostFinance Ltd by Swiss Post Ltd.
With today’s decisions, the Federal Council has finally given the go-ahead for the conversion of Swiss Post into a public limited company under special law and the demerger of PostFinance into a public limited company under private law. The Federal Council has also approved the opening balance sheet of Swiss Post Ltd. Today’s decision by the Federal Council fulfils an important condition that needed to be met before the future PostFinance Ltd could be granted a banking licence and placed under the supervision of FINMA. The date of the conversion had already been scheduled for 26 June 2013 by a previous Federal Council decision. The conversion and demerger will be officially completed on 26 June 2013 with the corresponding commercial register entries.