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Biel/Bienne is a city in the district of the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located on the language boundary and is throughout bilingual. Biel is the German name for the town, Bienne its French counterpart. The town is often referred to in both... languages simultaneously. Since January 1, 2005, the official name has been "Biel/Bienne", unofficially also "Biel-Bienne". Until then, the city was officially named Biel . The city lies at the foot of the first mountain range of the Jura Mountains area, guarding the only practical connection to Jura in the area, on the northeastern shores of Lake Biel , sharing the eastern tip of the lake with its sister city, Nidau, the administrative centre of the District of Nidau. Neuchâtel, Solothurn, and Bern lie west, east and southeast of Biel/Bienne. They all can be reached in about 30 minutes, either by train or by car. The city has about 50,000 inhabitants and the agglomeration near 100,000. The origin of the city has been traced to the times when Gaulish Helvetii settled in the region during the late La Tène period.
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The Swatch Group Ltd. is a Swiss company and watch manufacturer. It was formed in 1983 through the merging of the two Swiss watch manufacturers ASUAG and SSIH, and took its present name in 1998 . The company is led by G. Nicolas Hayek, Jr., son of the late co-founder and chairman Nicolas Hayek. In 2007, gross sales were 5.94 billion CHF. The Swatch Group has around 23,600 employees. The Swatch Group formed from two financially troubled... predecessor companies: In the late 1970s SSIH became insolvent due in part to a recession and in part to heavy competition from inexpensive Asian made quartz crystal watches. These difficulties occurred even though it had become Switzerland's largest and the world's third largest producer of watches. Its creditor banks assumed control in 1981. ASUAG failed similarly in 1982. Both groups were reorganized and merged into SSIH/ASUAG Holding Company in 1983.
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