Company Overview
MET Group is a privately held, Swiss-based European energy company founded in 2007, headquartered in Baar, Switzerland. With approximately 1,450 employees across 24 countries, MET ranks among the 20 largest companies in Switzerland by revenue and as a Top Employer and is one of the fastest-growing energy businesses in Europe. Since 2018, the company has run an Employee Share Programme (ESP) that gives high-performing employees the opportunity to become shareholders, converting part of their annual bonus into company shares through a structured annual trading window.
The Challenge
A Bespoke Program That No Standard Platform Could Accommodate
When MET Group's existing equity platform announced it was exiting the European market, Tünde Tóth, Group HR Director, who had designed the ESP from scratch when it launched in 2018, led the search for a replacement. The search was thorough, taking in several global and regional providers. What made it difficult was not the number of options. It was MET Group's unique program itself.
Unlike most equity plans, MET's is not tied to seniority alone. Shareholders range from junior employees who have earned their place through sustained performance all the way to senior leaders nominated by the CEO.
Running this kind of program on a platform built for standardised global deployments meant living with workarounds. "We had to find some workarounds to make it work in their big global systems," says Tünde.
The Solution
A Platform That Adapts to the Program, Backed by Reliable Point of Contact
Rather than adapting its program to fit a vendor's template, MET Group chose Optio specifically because it would adapt to them.
- Automated share cap enforcement. Where the previous platform accepted free-form text and left compliance checking to the team, Optio enforces hard limits at the point of entry. Each participant's purchase and sale limits are configured in the system, and submissions outside those limits are blocked before they are made. "Your solution is automatised," Tünde says. "Both the purchase and the sale, so we don't have to do extra work in the background."
- Mobile app trading. Shareholders can now participate in the annual trading window directly from their phones, something that was not available before. Given that MET's shareholders are spread across nearly 20 countries, the accessibility matters.
- Document generation and management automation. What had previously required substantial manual effort across the team is now handled by Optio's document generator: offer letters are automatically produced, distributed to participants, and tracked, with bulk upload reducing ongoing administrative overhead. "The bulk upload works very good," Tünde notes. "Optio also handled the program's less common requirements without friction. When the April 2026 window required two versions of the offer letter: one for a dividend scenario and one without. Optio prepared both in advance and held them in reserve. When the shareholder meeting confirmed its decision on the day, the team activated the right set. That kind of bespoke configuration, shaped around how MET actually operates, is what Tünde credits as one of the clearest advantages of Optio.
- Consistent, named support. Where MET had previously dealt with a rotating cast of contacts and no single owner of their account, Optio gave them one person — who stayed from implementation through go-live and beyond. "There is a great human who supports us and it's a one person," Tünde says. The continuity was not incidental: it reflected how Optio approached the relationship from the start, working to understand MET's processes rather than fitting them to a standard script.
"We really felt that we can tailor-make it for our needs which is very beneficial for us."
Tünde Tóth, Group HR Director, MET Group
The Result
Smooth Trading Process, Zero Post-Window Errors, and a Program Built for the Long Term
MET Group's first trading window on Optio opened in April 2026. The headline numbers tell the story.
- Smooth trading process: the first-ever trading process in Optio went very smooth without any mistake and a great satisfaction of the shareholders – which is really remarkable for a new software implementation!
- Low voluntary turnover among shareholders. Once someone joins the program, they stay. The combination of real financial upside, transparent communication, and genuine co-ownership creates a retention pull that other tools struggle to match. "Once you are in, for us, it's a super strong motivation and retention tool," Tünde says.
- Manual post-window verification eliminated. After every previous trading window, HR team members would export participant data to Excel and manually check every submission for compliance errors. That work no longer exists. The platform enforces the rules at the point of entry, and the window closes cleanly.
- Document management transformed to automated process. The effort previously spent on manual work has been substantially reduced. Documents were generated and the dual-scenario offer letters were pre-configured within the platform workflow.
- A foundation for growth. Revenue has grown from zero to nearly €29 billion in 19 years, and the share program is, in Tünde's view, not incidental to that trajectory. It is a real tool to create aligned interests.
"Once you are in, for us, it's a super strong motivation and retention tool."
Tünde Tóth, Group HR Director, MET Group
How and Why They Chose Optio
MET Group ran a thorough tender, taking in several global and regional providers. The criteria that mattered most were not standard ones: MET's program is unlike any other, and a bespoke platform was needed.
What Optio offered was flexibility and a demonstrated willingness to understand MET's processes and configure the platform around them.
The employee experience was another deciding factor. When evaluating platforms, Tünde assessed what participants would actually encounter when they logged in to trade. Optio's mobile app and the clarity of the interface stood out. In a program where shareholder engagement is core to the design, the experience on the other side of the login matters.