Swiss miss

摘要

Rarely these days does Zurich Finan-cial Services fail to disappoint. Despite selling $5 billion in assets last year, Rolf Hueppi, the outgoing chief executive of the giant Swiss insurer, had to answer for a net loss of $387m when he recently presented the firm's results for 2001. Having retracted predictions several times in the past few months, Mr Hiippi did not even dare to give any short-term forecasts, junking the company's target of 10-15% profit growth. He further frustrated analysts and investors by still not naming his successor, who is supposed to take over in the summer. "I feel let down," says Rene Locher at Bank Sarasin in Zurich, many of whose clients own Zurich shares.