Credit Suisse, Nestle, Novartis, UBS: Swiss Equities Preview

By Naomi Kresge

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in Zurich. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names. Share prices are from the last close.

The Swiss Market Index of the biggest and most actively traded companies lost 23.31, or 0.4 percent, to 5,398.9 in Zurich. The broader Swiss Performance Index dropped 0.3 percent to 4,668.

Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN VX): Koor Industries Ltd., a holding company controlled by Israeli billionaire Nochi Dankner, said it reduced its holding in Switzerland’s second-largest bank to 8.32 million shares, or 0.7 percent. The shares rose 24 centimes, or 0.5 percent, to 50 Swiss francs.

Nestle SA (NESN VX): The world’s largest food company will exercise an option to increase its stake in a joint bottled water distribution venture with Compania Cervecerias Unidas SA, Chile’s biggest beer brewer, the Chilean company said in a statement posted on a regulator’s Web site. The shares dropped 1.12 francs, or 2.8 percent, to 38.78 francs.

Novartis AG (NOVN VX): The company’s Afinitor cancer treatment shrunk tumors in a third of patients with relapsed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Hodgkin’s disease, new data shows. The stock slipped 6 centimes, or 0.1 percent, to 42.76 francs.

UBS AG (UBSN VX): Switzerland’s largest bank is “not out of the woods yet,” and clients are still withdrawing funds, SonntagsZeitung cited board member Bruno Gehrig as saying. The Swiss government will sell its stake in the bank as soon as justifiable, NZZ am Sonntag cited Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz as saying. The shares fell 51 centimes, or 3.3 percent, to 15.01 francs.

To contact the reporters on this story: Naomi Kresge in Zurich at nkresge@bloomberg.net;