Swiss Serial Acquirers: 8 of 13 Earn Above Cost of Capital
[Part of our Global Serial Acquirer Scorecard]
Key Finding: 62% of Swiss serial acquirers earn above 12% ROIC — the highest rate of any market screened. The secret is not superior acquisition skill. Four of the eight Tier A companies carry zero goodwill. Switzerland’s edge comes from organic compounding, not deal-making.
We screened 13 Swiss serial acquirers listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange by return on invested capital. Eight earn above a 12% cost of equity. Two sit at the borderline. Three destroy value. The overall quality is unmatched globally — but the reason challenges the serial acquirer thesis itself.
The Swiss Serial Acquirer Scorecard
| # | Company | Ticker | ROIC | GW/TA | Op Margin | Drawdown | Tier | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inficon | IFCN | 29.8% | 0% | 20.3% | -51.4% | A | Zero goodwill. Best-in-class ROIC. |
| 2 | Belimo | BEAN | 26.4% | 0% | 19.2% | -44.0% | A | Organic niche monopolist. Zero goodwill. |
| 3 | Geberit | GEBN | 22.6% | 30% | 24.7% | -45.8% | A | Best genuine acquirer. Margins absorb goodwill. |
| 4 | Schindler | SCHN | 17.0% | 9% | 11.2% | -49.2% | A | Elevator duopoly. Low goodwill despite decades of M&A. |
| 5 | Straumann | STMN | 16.7% | 16% | 24.0% | -58.3% | A | Dental implant leader. GLP-1 fears overdone. |
| 6 | Temenos | TEMN | 12.9% | 39% | 22.1% | -24.2% | A | Banking software. High goodwill, earning above CoC. |
| 7 | Sonova | SOON | 12.5% | 41% | 17.9% | -48.0% | A | Hearing aids. ROIC declining from mid-teens. |
| 8 | Bucher Ind. | BUCN | 12.2% | 0% | 8.9% | -38.2% | A | Diversified machinery. Zero goodwill. |
| 9 | Bossard | BOSN | 10.5% | 0% | 10.2% | -54.0% | B | Cyclical trough. Mid-cycle ROIC is 15%+. |
| 10 | Sika | SIKA | 10.2% | 41% | 14.6% | -59.8% | B | MBCC compressed ROIC from 14%. Integration pending. |
| 11 | Dormakaba | DOKA | 8.3% | 2% | 10.4% | -56.7% | C | Kaba-Dorma merger destroyed capital efficiency. |
| 12 | Landis+Gyr | LAND | 5.9% | 43% | 7.3% | -48.3% | C | Commodity smart meters. PE legacy goodwill. |
| 13 | SIG Group | SIGN | 3.5% | 41% | 10.7% | -69.5% | D | PE baggage. Scholle IPN added leverage without returns. |
Tier A: 8 companies (62%). Tier B: 2 (15%). Tier C: 2 (15%). Tier D: 1 (8%). No other market comes close — the US has 38% Tier A, Sweden has 25%, and Canada has 15%.
What Works: Two Models of Swiss Excellence
Switzerland’s Tier A companies split into two distinct groups. Understanding which model drives the returns changes how you think about the entire serial acquirer thesis.
The Zero-Goodwill Cluster
| Company | ROIC | GW/TA | Op Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inficon | 29.8% | 0% | 20.3% |
| Belimo | 26.4% | 0% | 19.2% |
| Bucher | 12.2% | 0% | 8.9% |
| Bossard | 10.5% | 0% | 10.2% |
Four companies with zero goodwill. The top two — Inficon and Belimo — earn 26-30% ROIC through organic growth and niche dominance, not acquisitions. Inficon makes precision instruments for semiconductor manufacturing. Belimo holds a near-monopoly in HVAC actuators. Neither needs to acquire to compound. Bucher Industries carries zero goodwill despite decades of acquisitions — either through small tuck-in deals or aggressive writedowns. Bossard is a fastener distributor in a cyclical trough; mid-cycle ROIC is 15%+.
This cluster is Switzerland’s distinctive edge. It pulls the average GW/TA down to 17% — second-lowest of any market screened, behind only Japan’s 11.5%.
The Disciplined Acquirers
Geberit — 22.6% ROIC with 30% GW/TA. The best genuine acquirer in the Swiss universe. Operating margins of 24.7% are high enough to absorb the goodwill burden and still earn well above cost of capital. Geberit has shifted from active acquirer to organic grower, and ROIC has held at ~22% through the transition.
Schindler — 17.0% ROIC with just 9% GW/TA despite decades of elevator and escalator acquisitions. Low goodwill intensity suggests disciplined pricing throughout the acquisition history. The service and maintenance annuity creates a moat that sustains returns. ROIC improved from 12% to 17% over the past five years.
Straumann — 16.7% ROIC, 24.0% operating margins, 16% GW/TA. An aggressive acquirer that maintains high returns. The -58.3% drawdown is the most anomalous quality-drawdown dislocation in the Swiss market — GLP-1 weight loss drug fears crushed the stock despite 10% revenue growth in FY25.
The Borderline Watch
Temenos — 12.9% ROIC with 39% GW/TA. Core banking software with 22.1% operating margins. Earning above cost of capital, but ROIC has been volatile. At 39% goodwill intensity, one bad year pushes Temenos past the 40% cliff.
Sonova — 12.5% ROIC with 41% GW/TA. Already past the cliff. ROIC is declining from 17% to 12.5%, driven by goodwill load from hearing aid acquisitions. Sonova is the only company above 40% GW/TA earning above cost of capital in this market. The trend is wrong.
The Goodwill Cliff
| Company (GW/TA) | ROIC | Above CoC? |
|---|---|---|
| Landis+Gyr (43%) | 5.9% | No |
| Sika (41%) | 10.2% | No |
| SIG Group (41%) | 3.5% | No |
| Sonova (41%) | 12.5% | Yes |
One of four companies above 40% GW/TA earns above cost of capital. The global pattern holds. Sonova barely passes and is declining. Sika was above 12% before the MBCC acquisition and may recover — but at current ROIC, it confirms the cliff.
What Fails
PE Legacy: SIG Group and Landis+Gyr
Both SIG Group (3.5% ROIC, 41% GW/TA) and Landis+Gyr (5.9%, 43%) were private-equity-owned before re-listing on the SIX. Both carry 40%+ goodwill that the operating business cannot service. SIG Group inherited Scholle IPN acquisition leverage without the returns — the deepest drawdown in the sample at -69.5%. Landis+Gyr makes commodity smart meters where acquisitions cannot change industry structure. When PE firms exit to public markets, public shareholders inherit the goodwill burden.
One-Deal Destroyer: Dormakaba
Pre-merger Kaba earned 35% ROIC. The 2015 “merger of equals” with Dorma crashed returns to 1.7%. A decade later, Dormakaba has recovered to just 8.3% — still below cost of capital. The 2% GW/TA is misleading: the merger goodwill was written off, but the value destruction lives in the suppressed ROIC. This is the purest one-deal destroyer in the Swiss universe.
Verdict Pending: Sika
Sika’s MBCC acquisition (2023, CHF 5.5B) compressed ROIC from 14% to 10.2%. Historical pattern offers hope — Sika’s ROIC dropped to 8% in 2012 after earlier deals, then climbed back to 16% by 2018. If the pattern repeats, Sika returns to Tier A within three years. If it does not, reclassify as a one-deal destroyer.
Two Paths to High Returns
Switzerland and the United States both produce high Tier A rates through opposite models.
| Metric | Switzerland (13) | US (16) | Sweden (24) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier A rate | 62% | 38% | 25% |
| Avg GW/TA | 17% | 43% | 34% |
| Avg Op Margin | 15.5% | 22.4% | 8.8% |
| Below 5% ROIC | 8% | 0% | 38% |
The US path: acquire aggressively, build moat-powered margins high enough to overcome 43% average goodwill intensity. US serial acquirers average 22.4% operating margins — highest of any market — and use those margins to absorb heavy balance sheets.
The Swiss path: avoid goodwill entirely. Grow organically or acquire with extreme discipline. Swiss serial acquirers carry 17% average goodwill — less than half the US figure — and earn returns through capital efficiency rather than margin superiority.
Sweden provides the counterpoint. The Swedish roll-up model sits between these poles — 34% average GW/TA with 8.8% average margins — and produces the worst outcome: 25% Tier A, 38% below 5% ROIC. The Swedish model pays acquisition premiums without the margin buffer to absorb them.
The lesson: serial acquisition works when either margins are high enough to service the goodwill (US) or goodwill is low enough that margins don’t need to be extraordinary (Switzerland). The middle path — moderate goodwill, moderate margins — fails most often.
What to Look For in Swiss Serial Acquirers
Four filters for this market:
- Prefer zero goodwill. The four zero-goodwill companies average 19.7% ROIC. The nine with goodwill average 12.2%. The balance sheet tells you more than the income statement.
- Watch the PE exits. SIG Group and Landis+Gyr prove that PE-to-public transitions leave public shareholders with goodwill they cannot service. Any future Swiss PE exit deserves the same scrutiny.
- Cycle-adjust before judging. Sika, Bossard, Geberit, and Bucher all have construction and industrial exposure. Trough ROIC understates normalized returns. Use 5-year ROIC direction, not point-in-time.
- The Dormakaba test. Before any “merger of equals,” ask: would this deal destroy the capital efficiency that makes the company Tier A? If the target is large relative to the acquirer, one deal can undo a decade of compounding.
Methodology
We screened 13 Swiss serial acquirers listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. All financial data in CHF.
- ROIC: Net operating profit after tax / invested capital (equity + debt - cash), with goodwill included in the denominator. Source: QuickFS (latest fiscal year).
- GW/TA: Goodwill / total assets (most recent quarter). Source: QuickFS.
- Operating margin: Operating income / revenue (latest fiscal year). Source: QuickFS.
- Drawdown: Maximum decline from 5-year peak. Source: Yahoo Finance (.SW suffix).
- Tier classification: A (>12%), B (10-12%), C (5-10%), D (<5%).
- Data as of: February 2026.
Four companies (Inficon, Belimo, Bucher, Bossard) carry zero goodwill and are organic growers; they are included because they are frequently grouped with Swiss serial acquirers and serve as benchmarks for capital discipline.