Schweizer Treuhand Holding AG of Steinhausen (ZG), a portfolio company of the multi-family office Winterberg, acquired a majority of SMART Treuhand AG, announced 1 October 2026. SMART was founded in 2017 by Stefan Widmer and Stéphanie Rauchenstein and employs close to 100 people in nine Swiss locations.
Burkhalter Group announced on 1 October 2026 that it will acquire Plasco AG of Steg (VS), a waterproofing specialist for buildings, civil engineering and tunnels with about 25 employees and annual sales of about CHF 6.5 million. The owners are selling as part of their succession planning; CEO Josef Pfammatter stays.
A Swiss investor group is acquiring 100% of Micasa AG, the furniture retailer Migros sold to its management in 2025, the company told the AWP news agency on 2 October 2026. Four of Micasa's 30 stores will close.
5Press-Reported Deals— flat
517Distress Events-18% WoW
3Startup FundingCHF 7.6M converted
14Succession Signals+8% WoW
1077New Registrations+8% WoW
2511Board Changes+6% WoW
The buyers of small fiduciary firms are now being bought. SMART Treuhand, founded in 2017, grew by acquisition to close to 100 people in nine offices. On 1 October its shareholders sold a majority to Schweizer Treuhand Holding of Steinhausen, a Winterberg portfolio company that buys accounting firms mostly where an owner needs a successor.
For a Treuhand owner, that means more than one buyer. Platforms compete for the same small firms, and they now have an exit of their own. The same model appeared one sector over: Gaius Capital invested in Alpiora, a Swiss platform that buys insurance brokers in succession.
Burkhalter buys another regional specialist. Plasco of Steg seals buildings and tunnels against water, with about 25 staff and CHF 6.5 million in sales. The owners sell as part of their succession planning; the CEO and the name stay.
Micasa changes hands again. Thirteen months after Migros sold the furniture chain to its managers, a Swiss investor group is taking 100%, and four of 30 stores close. VEGA, a German family-owned sensor maker, bought the Zurich IoT software firm akenza.
Distress: a trading group and a candle brand. The Zug court opened bankruptcy on 25 September against AOT Holding, AOT Trading and AOT Energy Switzerland of Steinhausen at once. The same day, PartyLite Trading of Granges-Paccot, the European hub of the candle brand, went bankrupt after its US owner chose to leave Europe.
Finding fiduciary groups in the register
The register shows little of this consolidation directly. Since January 2025 we count 41 mergers or asset transfers into firms named Treuhand, fiduciaire or Revision, because platforms buy shares, and an AG's share sale is not published.
The board is where it shows. In our universe data, 27 people sit on the boards of three or more active fiduciary firms. About half of them sit on firms with different names, not a founder's own sister companies: for example the Bodensee-Treuhand, Luchsinger Wirtschaftstreuhand and Wettstein & Partner boards in Thurgau and St. Gallen share two members, and Aricon, Gemperli, HEIMATT and Küng Treuhand in central Switzerland share one. A shared board seat is not proof of ownership, but it is where to start.
The screen: in the register, find people with seats on three or more firms whose names contain Treuhand, fiduciaire or Revision, and keep the cases where the firm names differ. Repeat it each quarter; a new name joining such a cluster usually means a purchase.
Pre-Deal Signals — moves that precede transactions
Sep 28
BC Platforms AGZG· Health data software
Seat moved from Zurich to Zug (published 28 September); two foreign board members out, two Swiss board members in; capital in four share classes, three of them preference shares
neutral
Sep 30
LIGNOX Totalunternehmung AGTG· Timber construction
Auditor changed from PricewaterhouseCoopers to OBT, a mid-tier firm (published 30 September); its sister company LIGNOX Holzbau AG made the same change
neutral
Sep 30
Movu AGZH· Online services
Auditor changed from Ernst & Young to Reviduna Revisions of Volketswil, and one board member left (published 30 September)
bearish
Procurement Prints — public contract awards
Oct 1
NTS Workspace AGBE
State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO): moving its data centre, CHF 10.8 million.
award 3 on our record · 3 tracked total · CHF 13M lifetime
CHF 10.8M
Sep 28
WSP Ingénieurs Conseils SAVD
SBB, Léman 2030 programme: general planning for the Geneva station sector, CHF 10.8 million.
3 public awards in2026 · 13 tracked total · CHF 49M lifetime
CHF 10.8M
Sep 30
Walo Bertschinger AGSH
Canton of Zurich civil engineering office: road works on St. Gallerstrasse in Elsau, CHF 10.0 million.
20 public awards in2026 · 62 tracked total · CHF 269M lifetime
CHF 10.0M
Oct 1
ARGE Schöb-SchönauerSG
Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics: new customs intervention centre at St. Margrethen, building envelope works, CHF 9.3 million.
CHF 9.3M
Sep 29
Kaufmann Oberholzer AGTG
thurmed Immobilien, the Thurgau hospital group's property company: extension of building A, CHF 7.0 million.
award 8 on our record · 8 tracked total · CHF 12M lifetime
CHF 7.0M
The Tape — 4 transactions
Press reported in the mediaReg commercial-register filing, value = net assets
Oct 1
PRESS
Burkhalter Holding AG← Plasco AGVS
Plasco of Steg seals buildings, civil-engineering works and tunnels against water, with about 25 staff and sales of about CHF 6.5 million. Its owners are selling as part of their succession planning. Burkhalter, the listed building-technology group that grows by buying regional specialists, keeps the name and CEO Josef Pfammatter and runs Plasco as a separate group company.
Migros sold its furniture chain to managers Philipp Agustoni and Manuel Landolt, with private investors, effective September 2025. Thirteen months later a Swiss investor group, not yet named, is acquiring 100% of Micasa AG and four of the 30 stores close. The management stays in place. A second ownership change in little more than a year, with closures attached, is how a buyer reads a retail carve-out that has not yet found its shape.
akenza of Zurich sells a software platform that connects sensors and building systems from any maker, for industry and corporate real estate. VEGA, a family-owned German maker of level and pressure sensors with more than 2,800 staff, buys it to add the software layer to its hardware. akenza keeps its customers and operates independently.
Alpiora is a Swiss insurance-brokerage platform that buys brokers whose owners need a successor, run by Oliver Lang, Nenad Valverde and Jeton Topalli. Gaius Capital invests in it; it is the investor's second insurance-brokerage deal and its first in Switzerland. The same model as the fiduciary platforms, one sector over.
A Zurich venture studio that builds business-to-business food and beverage technology companies around problems food manufacturers bring to it. The round funds its next ventures, including a chief executive for its second company.
Cotierra builds systems that turn farm waste into biochar on site, for tropical agricultural supply chains. The money pays for commercial roll-outs, starting with coffee.
Bee People of St. Moritz, founded in 2024, makes supplements from organic propolis and honey and sells in Switzerland and Asia. The seed round funds research, sales and an entry into Germany.
Swiss entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, investors from the founders' previous company EGO Movement
The single judge of the Zug cantonal court opened bankruptcy on 25 September 2026 against three companies of the AOT group in Steinhausen at once: AOT Holding AG, AOT Trading AG and AOT Energy Switzerland AG, published 1 October. A trading group's estate is mostly contracts, receivables and its counterparties; the trading licences and team are what a competitor would look at.
PartyLite Trading SA en liquidation FR · Consumer goods distribution · est. 1997
bankruptcy
Declared bankrupt by the president of the Sarine civil court on 25 September 2026, published 2 October. The Granges-Paccot company was the European hub of the PartyLite candle brand, sold through home parties; ORF reported that its US owner, Luminex Home Decor & Fragrance, decided to leave Europe and that the Swiss parent filed, a day after its Vienna subsidiary went bankrupt.
Ronin Primeurs SA, en liquidation GE · Fresh produce wholesale · est. 1995
bankruptcy
Declared bankrupt by the Geneva court of first instance on 22 September 2026, published 30 September. The Vernier company, registered since 1995, trades fresh fruit and vegetables; its supply contracts and restaurant and retail customers are what a Geneva produce wholesaler would want before they are dispersed.
The Signals
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Based on 6,347 SOGC/SHAB publications processed this week. M&A data sourced from Swiss commercial registry filings (0 SOGC), press-reported transactions via web intelligence (5 EXA), and startup funding from Startupticker, Tech.eu, and company disclosures (3 rounds). Company distress scoring based on proprietary multi-signal model across 113,000 Swiss companies. Register deal counts exclude merger and asset-transfer filings whose notice states that one owner held every share of both companies, and demergers. From 9 October 2026 that rule is applied reliably: a second, older tagger had been overwriting the notice-based verdict every morning since the W38 change, so group absorptions such as NZZ Regionalmedien into NZZ and Steiner Energie into CKW reached the register count. None of this week's seven register merger filings was an arm's-length deal. Auditor-change signals were re-read after a parser fix: LIGNOX Totalunternehmung moved from PwC to OBT, a mid-tier firm, not to a local one. Press deals rejected on review: Pina Petroli and Righetti Combustibili (merged into Volenergy Ticino in 2024), and Infomaniak (no target named).
ValIndex reads every SHAB filing the day it publishes, checks each merger notice for common ownership, and tracks succession, distress and ownership signals across Swiss companies. About ValIndex →