Swiss Re United Kingdom. In Asia, the group has offices in the following countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea. There are also offices in the Americas: Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States. Swiss Re is headquartered in Zurich where the parent company’s main premises has stood on the shores of Lake Zurich since 1864. Its London office is located in the award-winning 30 St Mary Axe tower, which opened on 25 May 2004. 30 St Mary Axe is London's first environmentally sustainable tall building. Among the building's most distinctive features are its windows, which open
St Mary Axe may derive from a combination of the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a neighbouring tavern which prominently displayed a sign with an image of an axe, or simply from the church name itself, which may have come from the axes used by the Worshipful Company of Skinners, who were patrons. The sign of an axe is reported to have been present over the east end of the church. The street St Mary Axe is now most notable for the Baltic Exchange at No. 38, and the "Gherkin" at No. 30, a distinctively shaped skyscraper built on the site