[s1artibartfast]

The Swiss Federal Railways is a really interesting organizational model. It is run as government owened private corporation. it can issue it's own bonds and the swiss states (cantons) enter purchase contract negotiations with it for service.

The federal goverment beurocrats provide arms length objectives, and the coorporation figures out how to acheive them.

SBB profits do not feed into the government general fund, but must be used by the corporation to pay down its debt or invest in future infrastructure and services.

[s1artibartfast]

This is different from the swiss air resuce and ambulence fleet Rega, which is entirely private. It is funded by volunatry insurance paid by the swiss citizens and the annual premium is about 40 CHF for coverage.

[Matumio]

Not quite, at least 50% of rescue costs will be paid via normal mandatory health insurance (just like when you need an ambulance car). Or 100% if you have a supplementary health insurance for transport.

For CHF 40 you can become a Rega patron and then they will usually pay whatever the insurance didn't cover, I think, but technically they don't have to.

[amunozo]

And employee told me that SBB is the second biggest landlord in the country and real state is its most profitable branch. I cannot confirm it, though.

[mamonster]

They are the 2nd biggest after Swisslife (I think?), but the profitability is kind of a bad metric because they are required to both fund their pension fund (36 thousand employees) and invest into infrastructure from this money. They make something like 250mio CHF before their commitments to infra + pensions and only have 30 million left over.

There are now a lot of complaints/demands that they should be required to make more affordable housing with their portfolio.

[amunozo]

That's what I heard yes, that SwissLife was the biggest. I kind of like the idea, but at the same time it creates a lot of conflicts of interest.