Stephan Schmidheiny began at a very early stage to expand his entrepreneurial activities beyond the construction industry and the national borders of Switzerland. He often invested in companies that were in financial difficulties and needed to be restructured. In addition to Switzerland, over the years he increasingly turned his focus to Latin America. He diversified across a range of industries, holding investments in companies operating in areas such as
- the production of gypsum, packaging and water pipes
- finance and real estate
- forestry
- steel
- and manufacturing electronic devices, watches, cameras and microscopes.
Saving the Swiss Watch Industry
In Switzerland, the investment in SMH / ASUAG, today's Swatch Group, was one of the most successful endeavours. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Swiss watch industry had hit rock bottom because of competition from Japan; SMH was handed over to its creditor banks.
Together with Nicolas Hayek, Stephan Schmidheiny acquired a majority shareholding in SMH in 1985, and went on to lay the groundwork for an unprecedented success story in Swiss business history: the launch of the Swatch watch.
Once a strategic realignment and profound restructuring had returned the watch company to profitability, Stephan Schmidheiny, who had been a director and investor from the outset, gradually withdrew from this commitment. The foundation for his present wealth had been laid.
Pioneering Work in Latin America
In 1998, Stephan Schmidheiny created a groundbreaking group of companies in Latin America – GrupoNueva. GrupoNueva and its companies have adhered to the ‘triple bottom line’ philosophy from the outset, simultaneously pursuing social, ecological and economic objectives.
GrupoNueva initially included Amanco and Plycem, leading companies in the building materials industry, as well as investments in the forestry sector.
As early as 1982, Stephan Schmidheiny had invested in Terranova, a forestry company in Chile, which he developed into a leading provider of sustainable wood products. In 2005, Terranova and Masisa merged to become one of the largest publicly traded companies in the Latin American forestry sector.
In 2001, Stephan Schmidheiny decided to withdraw gradually from all his business functions and from public life. From then on, he turned his attention to his legacy.
In 2003, Stephan Schmidheiny gifted the shares of GrupoNueva to the non-profit Viva Trust he had founded. The generated dividends provide the funding for the non-profit Fundación Avina, which he also established in Latin America in the 1990s.