Alcon picks Geneva over Texas for new HQ

ZURICH (Reuters) - The headquarters of Alcon, the eyecare unit of Novartis (NOVN.S) which will be spun off to shareholders in 2019, will move from the division’s longtime corporate home in the Dallas suburbs to the Swiss city of Geneva, Novartis said in a statement on Tuesday.

Alcon’s current global divisional headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, will remain a major site but the company plans to employ up to 700 people in tax-friendly Switzerland after the spin-off, which aims to create a separate publicly listed company.

The holding company will be based in the central canton of Fribourg, with additional Swiss sites in the towns of Rotkreuz and Schaffhausen.

Alcon was founded in 1945 as a small pharmacy in Fort Worth and its growth into one of the largest ophthalmic surgical device and contact lens makers helped put Texas’s medtech industry on the map.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-novartis-alcon/alcon-picks-geneva-over-texas-for-new-hq-idUSKCN1LR0CO?il=0