Werner Rey

Werner Kurt Rey (born October 6, 1943 in Zürich) is a Swiss entrepreneur former bank clerk, who made a name for himself in 1976 when acquiring the majority of the venerable but loss-making Bally Shoe company and selling his stake soon later with a profit of around 60 million Swiss francs. Subsequently, his investor and venture capitalist career took off from that of an initiator of hostile take-overs to that of a USD billionaire white knight in various international M&A deals ranging from real estate to engineering works, electronics, media and financial services, in which he himself served occasionally as guarantor to institutional lenders.

Through his companies, Werner Rey held controlling participations in the Metallwerke Selve AG in Thun, the commodity inspection company Inspectorate International, the holding company Omni Holding AG, the Swiss media conglomerate Jean Frey AG, the temporary employment agency Adia Interim (today part of Adecco), and a substantial 30 percent of the established Sulzer group, among others.

His career took a turn during the 1990/91 recession, and, while no allegations of wrongdoings were raised against Werner Rey in connection with the collapse of his multi-billion Omni Group, he was charged in 2001 with a controversial judgment for attempted fraud in the preparation of the public offering of Inspectorate in 1986 at which both the underwriting bank (witness of the prosecution) and the shareholders incurred spectacular gains of multiples of the stock’s nominal value.

While traveling in the US and Bahamas, the Canton Berne issued an international arrest warrant in 1992 based on allegations that were dropped shortly thereafter realising that it had no proof. After refusing to return to Switzerland on grounds of prejudgment by the media who put pressure on the judiciary, he remained in the Bahamas for years until arrested and deported to Switzerland, where he spent four years in investigative detention. After his release from investigative detention, Rey pursued his career and continued working in the financial industry in London.