Reading SHAB/FOSC: A Practical Guide for Salespeople

Every working day, the Swiss government publishes a list of company changes. New firms, dissolved firms, relocated firms, new board members, capital increases. It all goes into the SHAB. Most salespeople have never opened it. The ones who do get a head start on every deal that follows a corporate event.

This guide explains how the SHAB works, what each entry type means, and how to turn a daily government gazette into a practical sales pipeline.

What the SHAB is

SHAB stands for Schweizerisches Handelsamtsblatt. In French-speaking Switzerland, the same publication is called Feuille officielle suisse du commerce, abbreviated FOSC. It is the official gazette of commerce for the Swiss Confederation. Every entry in a cantonal commercial register (Handelsregister / Registre du commerce) gets published here by law.

The legal basis is the Swiss Code of Obligations (Art. 931 OR). When a company registers, changes its board, moves its domicile, increases capital, or goes into liquidation, the cantonal register records the change and forwards it to the SHAB for publication. Publication creates legal effect: third parties are deemed to know about the change once it appears in the gazette.

You can access the SHAB online at shab.ch. The interface lets you search by company name, date, canton, and publication type. Entries appear in German, French, or Italian depending on the canton of origin. A companion database, Zefix (Zentraler Firmenindex), provides a unified search across all cantonal registers and links directly to SHAB publications.

Publication types you will encounter

The SHAB publishes several categories of commercial register mutations. Each one tells a different story about what is happening inside a company. Here are the main types.

New registrations (Neueintragungen)

A new company has been entered into the commercial register. The publication includes the company name, legal form (AG, GmbH, Einzelfirma, etc.), registered address, purpose clause, share capital, and the names of authorized signatories. For salespeople, new registrations are the earliest possible signal that a business exists. The founders have committed capital and filed paperwork. They will need suppliers, tools, and services.

Mutations (Mutationen)

Mutations cover any change to an existing registration. This is the broadest category and includes several sub-types.

• Board and management changes (Organschaftliche Änderungen): A new director, a departing board member, a change in signing authority. These entries name the individuals involved and their new roles. A change at the top often signals a shift in strategy, vendor relationships, or budget priorities.
• Domicile changes (Sitzverlegungen): The company has moved its registered office to a new address or a different canton. Relocations can indicate growth (moving to larger premises), expansion into a new region, or a restructuring. A move across cantons also triggers a new registration in the receiving canton.
• Purpose changes (Zweckänderungen): The company has modified its stated business purpose. This might mean it is entering a new market, adding a product line, or pivoting entirely. Purpose clauses in Swiss law are broad, but a change still reflects a deliberate decision by the board.
• Capital changes: An increase or reduction of share capital. Capital increases often precede investment rounds, acquisitions, or expansion. Capital reductions can accompany restructuring or a return of excess capital to shareholders.
• Name changes (Firmenänderungen): The company has changed its legal name. Rebranding often accompanies a broader transformation. It is also common after mergers or acquisitions.

Deletions (Löschungen)

The company has been removed from the commercial register. This happens after a completed liquidation, a merger where the acquired entity ceases to exist, or a court order. For sales, a deletion means you can remove the company from your pipeline. But pay attention to the reason: if a company was absorbed in a merger, the acquiring entity might be a prospect.

Bankruptcy and debt enforcement proceedings

The SHAB also publishes notices related to insolvency: bankruptcy openings (Konkurseröffnungen), calls to creditors, and composition proceedings (Nachlassverfahren). These are published under a separate section from the commercial register mutations, but they reference the same companies. For salespeople, an open bankruptcy is a clear signal to stop pursuing a prospect. A composition proceeding, on the other hand, means the company is restructuring its debts and may continue operating.

How to read a SHAB entry

A typical commercial register entry in the SHAB follows a predictable structure. Knowing the layout helps you scan quickly.

Example structure of a mutation entry:
Publication date / Journal number / Canton
Company name / UID (CHE-xxx.xxx.xxx)
Legal form / Registered office
Nature of the change
Details: names of persons, their functions, signing authority
Reference to the cantonal register entry

The UID (Unternehmens-Identifikationsnummer / IDE) is the unique company identifier. It starts with CHE- followed by nine digits. This number stays constant across name changes, relocations, and restructurings. Use it to track a company reliably across SHAB publications and in Zefix.

The nature of the change line tells you immediately what happened. In German, look for keywords like Eingetragene Personen (registered persons), Neue Adresse (new address), Neuer Zweck (new purpose), or Aktienkapital (share capital). In French, the equivalents are Personnes inscrites, Nouvelle adresse, Nouveau but, and Capital-actions.

The signing authority (Zeichnungsberechtigung / Droit de signature) describes who can legally bind the company. Common forms are Einzelunterschrift (sole signature) and Kollektivunterschrift zu zweien (joint signature of two). Sole signature authority usually marks the decision-maker.

Which entry types matter most for B2B sales

You could read every SHAB entry every day. In practice, three types produce the most actionable leads.

1. Board and management changes

A new CEO, managing director, or board member often brings new vendor relationships. Contracts signed by a predecessor may come up for review. Budget allocations shift. The first 90 days after a leadership change are when a new executive evaluates existing suppliers and looks for alternatives. If you sell to the C-suite, this is your trigger.

Look specifically for entries where a person with Einzelunterschrift or Geschäftsführer/Directeur in their title is newly registered. This is the person who can sign contracts alone.

2. Capital increases

When a company raises its share capital, money is flowing in. This could be a funding round, a shareholder injection, or retained earnings being formalized. Either way, the company has more resources. Large capital increases at growth-stage companies are especially relevant for sellers of software, consulting services, and infrastructure.

3. New registrations in your target verticals

A newly registered company is building everything from scratch. It needs banking, insurance, legal counsel, accounting software, office space, IT infrastructure, and marketing services. The purpose clause in the registration tells you what the company does. Filter new registrations by purpose keywords that match your ideal customer profile.

Other entry types have value depending on what you sell. If you offer relocation services or commercial real estate, domicile changes are gold. If you run a law firm focused on restructuring, bankruptcy proceedings are your lead source. Match the entry type to your offer.

A practical daily workflow

The SHAB publishes new entries every working day, typically by late morning. Here is a realistic routine that takes 15 to 20 minutes.

1. Open shab.ch and set your filters. Select the publication date (today), the cantons you cover, and the publication types you care about. Bookmark this filtered view so you can return to it with one click.
2. Scan the headlines. Each entry shows the company name and mutation type. Skip deletions and routine address corrections unless they are relevant to your business. Focus on board changes, capital changes, and new registrations.
3. Check the company in Zefix. For entries that look interesting, open zefix.admin.ch and search by UID or company name. Zefix shows the full current state of the registration, including all active board members and the latest purpose clause. It also links to the cantonal register for historical entries.
4. Qualify the lead. Does the company match your ideal customer profile? Is it in the right industry, the right size, the right growth stage? Check the company website, LinkedIn, and any available financial data before reaching out.
5. Log and act. Add qualified companies to your CRM with the SHAB publication as the source. Note the specific event (new CEO, capital increase, etc.) so your outreach can reference it. Personalized outreach that mentions a real company event converts better than generic cold email.

The limits of doing this manually

The workflow above works. It also has obvious constraints.

Volume is the first problem. On a typical day, the SHAB publishes between 200 and 400 entries. If you cover multiple cantons or the entire country, scanning every entry by eye becomes tedious. You will start skipping days, and skipped days mean missed signals.

Language is the second problem. Entries appear in the official language of the publishing canton. If you cover Zurich and Geneva, you need to read both German and French entries. The SHAB does not translate between languages.

Context is the third problem. A SHAB entry tells you what changed in the register. It does not tell you the company's revenue, employee count, tech stack, or recent news. Qualifying a lead from a raw SHAB entry requires you to open multiple tabs and piece together information from different sources. This is where most manual workflows break down: the qualification step takes longer than the scanning step, and it is harder to delegate.

Finally, speed matters. SHAB data is public. Every recruiter, competitor, and financial advisor in Switzerland has access to the same gazette. The advantage goes to whoever acts first after publication.

How Prospex automates the SHAB workflow

Prospex monitors the SHAB daily and matches new publications against your ideal customer profile. Instead of scanning hundreds of entries yourself, you receive a filtered feed of companies that match your criteria.

Each matched company arrives with context already attached: what the SHAB entry says, what the company does, who the key people are, and why the event is relevant to you. The qualification step that takes 5 to 10 minutes per company by hand is done for you before you open Prospex in the morning.

Prospex tracks more than the SHAB. Commercial register mutations are one signal among several. Job postings, website changes, news mentions, and other public data points feed into the same company profile. When a SHAB entry says a company appointed a new CTO and a job posting says the same company is hiring three backend engineers, you see both signals together. The combination tells a richer story than either signal alone.

A capital increase published in the SHAB, combined with a new "Head of Sales" job posting the same week, tells you the company is investing in growth. That is a conversation starter.

You can try Prospex with a free account. The setup takes two minutes: describe the companies you want to sell to, and Prospex starts matching SHAB publications and other signals to your profile immediately.

Key takeaways

The SHAB is the most underused lead source in Swiss B2B sales. It is free, comprehensive, and updated every business day. Every company change that matters to your pipeline appears here before it appears anywhere else.

Reading the SHAB manually works for a narrow geographic focus and a small number of entries. Once you cover multiple cantons or sell into several verticals, automation pays for itself by catching the signals you would otherwise miss and qualifying them faster than you can do by hand.

Start with the entry types that match your sales motion. Board changes if you sell to executives. Capital increases if you target growing companies. New registrations if you want first-mover advantage with startups. Then build the habit of checking daily. Consistency matters more than comprehensiveness.