Directors and Officers

Investment Advisor

Hottinger Capital Corp.

1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 400

New York, NY 10020

(212) 332-7930

Administrator

Citi Fund Services Ohio, Inc.

Custodian

Citibank, N.A.

Transfer Agent

American Stock Transfer & Trust Company

59 Maiden Lane

Plaza Level

New York, NY 10038

Legal Counsel

Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP

Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

Deloitte & Touche LLP

The Investment Advisor

The Swiss Helvetia Fund, Inc. (the “Fund”) is managed by Hottinger Capital Corp., which belongs to Groupe Banque Hottinger & Cie SA.

Groupe Banque Hottinger & Cie SA dates back to Banque Hottinguer, which was formed in Paris in 1786 and is one of Europe’s oldest private banking firms. Groupe Banque Hottinger & Cie SA has remained under the control of the Hottinger family through seven generations. Its headquarters are in Zurich with offices in Geneva, Sion, Basel, Brig and New York.

Executive Offices

The Swiss Helvetia Fund, Inc.

1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 400

New York, NY 10020

1-888-SWISS-00 (1-888-794-7700)

(212) 332-2760

For inquiries and reports:

1-888-SWISS-00 (1-888-794-7700)

Fax: (212) 332-7931

email: swz@swz.com

Website Address

www.swz.com

The Fund

The Fund is a non-diversified, closed-end investment company whose objective is to seek long-term capital appreciation through investment in equity and equity-linked securities of Swiss companies. The Fund also may acquire and hold equity and equity-linked securities of non-Swiss companies in limited instances.

The Fund is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SWZ”.

Net Asset Value is calculated daily by 6:15 P.M. (Eastern Time). The most recent calculation is available by calling 1-888-SWISS-00 or by accessing our Website. Net Asset Value is also published weekly in Barron’s, the Monday edition of The Wall Street Journal and the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

Overall Investment Strategy and Process

The goal of the Fund is to provide shareholders with broad exposure to the Swiss equity market and to returns based on long term capital appreciation through investments in Swiss companies that have the potential to provide sustainable returns for their shareholders. Management is looking to generate these returns by investing in companies whose growth profile is underestimated by the market or whose recovery potential is overlooked by other investors. These opportunities exist among companies of all market capitalizations. The Fund invests in Swiss companies ranging from some of the largest global businesses to mid- and smaller-size companies that are less represented in the major Swiss indices, including private equity investments in early stage companies.

As part of its investment process, Management seeks to identify and value the factors driving business developments. Management also uses financial modeling tools, such as discounted cash flow analysis, to assess market-implied expectations about the growth or recovery of specific companies and compares them to its own expectations. As a result, unlike an index fund, the screening and the weighting process of the Fund’s portfolio represents the broader Swiss market.

Management believes that its stock selection process based on the fundamental analysis of specific companies’ business developments will add value to the Fund’s portfolio. This is a long term approach, in

particular in the mid and small capitalization sectors of the market where it usually takes more time for those companies’ successes to attract the attention of international investors.

Investment Results

Portfolio Composition

(All percentages are as of June 30, 2013)

Pharmaceutical products (including diagnostics and vaccines) make up 25.25% of the Fund’s portfolio. Consumer goods (Swatch, Richemont and the food group) amount to 17.05% of the Fund’s assets. Companies in both groups can be considered to carry lower-than-average risk when it comes to their dependency on economic growth to generate profits. The level of predictability of these companies’ earnings makes them targets for investors looking for bond-like yields and, as a result, make them more sensitive to the level of, and expectations about, interest rates.

The industrial sector, which constitutes 14.79% of the Fund’s assets, can be divided into goods (niche products or broad market products) and service-oriented businesses.

Consumer goods and pharmaceutical companies’ earnings predictability comes at a rich valuation, which has been pushed even higher in the current low interest rate environment. On the other side, the goods producing segment of the industrial sector is more volatile and, in the absence of economic growth, is exposed to some deflationary trends. The Fund has investments in that segment through its positions in Sulzer and Burckhardt Compression, although Burckhardt Compression is somewhat protected by the strength in its end markets in energy storage and transportation and its strong position in a niche market.

In the banking industry, which represents 8.85% of the Fund’s assets, the Fund has exposure to Credit Suisse and UBS, as Management believes that those companies are ahead of the rest of the Swiss private banking industry in transitioning to a business that is less reliant on revenues from foreign non-taxed assets, which continues to be an area of focus in light of the ongoing tax dispute between Switzerland and the United States. The Swiss federal government has revealed a “Plan B” to settle this dispute after the Swiss Parliament rejected a deal that would have prevented U.S. legal action against Swiss banks suspected of helping tax avoidance. At least twelve Swiss banks are being probed by the U.S. Department of Justice and, in April 2012, were authorized by the Swiss government to cooperate in this investigation. Swiss and U.S. officials are expected to publish a joint statement once they agree on the conditions under which those banks can resolve that investigation.

The Swiss insurance sector, corresponding to 2.89% of the Fund’s portfolio, is subject to the same risks (cost, rates, price of risk) and loss ratio as their non-Swiss peers, but the mid-sized insurers (e.g., Swiss Life) have additional country risk given their exposure to the Swiss pension business or to specific local pricing structures.

Consumer goods, healthcare (pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical technology) and industrial service-oriented companies benefit the most from the increase in free liquidity available for financial investments outside the fixed-income markets. The valuation of other sectors like financials (particularly life insurance) and industrial products would benefit from an increase in interest rates that would be introduced by more capital being invested on a long term basis into the real economy.

The Fund is exposed to stock-level specific factors through its investments in companies in various stages of recovery. While it is difficult to fully isolate those factors from the systemic ones, Management estimates that a good portion of the expected returns from the Fund’s positions in Actelion, Panalpina, Nobel Biocare, Lonza, Swiss Life, Meyer Buerger and, to a certain extent, UBS (representing 18.52% of the Fund’s assets in the aggregate) is driven by the development and successful implementation of those companies’ recovery strategies.

The Fund has maintained a large exposure to the healthcare sector as Management

believes that the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries will continue to create value as the quality of management and the drug pipelines of the Swiss companies are at the top of the international standard. Much of the performance of healthcare stocks will depend on the valuation of the sector, the attractiveness of dividend yields and on the progress made in product pipelines. Since 2011, the healthcare sector has benefited from an increase in valuation. Like the European pharmaceutical stocks, the two largest Swiss pharmaceutical companies, Roche and Novartis, have seen an expansion of their price-to-earnings multiples although they remain at reasonable levels based on a historical comparison. Several of the issues facing the pharmaceutical industry over the past decade such as patent cliffs, renewal of product pipelines and R&D productivity also have improved.

Outside of the large capitalization companies, biotech and medical technology companies are attractive for their specific characteristics. In this space, Management seeks to selectively identify companies with a high barrier to entry and a strong footprint in a particular market, such as Actelion. Importance also is given to companies with breakthrough technologies, where potential value creation is significant.

Performance Analysis

(All returns are year-to-date total returns in Swiss francs as of June 30, 2013)

Results for the Swiss equity markets during the first half of the year continued their upward trend. The largest companies in the Swiss Performance Index (SPI Large Caps) achieved returns of 16.01% on the back of a strong showing from Roche, the banks and the luxury goods segment (Richemont and Swatch). The SPI Mid-Cap and the SPI Small-Cap sub-indexes also showed positive returns for the period, rising 11.11% and 6.87%, respectively. The translation of these performance numbers into U.S. dollars is penalized by the 3.4% relative depreciation of the Swiss franc during the period.

Industrial Goods & Services

During the first half of 2013, the industrial goods & services sector returned 7.85%, contributing 1.54% to the total return of the Fund. Among the Fund’s investments, recovery investments cases like Meyer Burger, a solar equipment manufacturer, and Panalpina, a freight forwarding company, outperformed the sector by a factor of more than two, while Sulzer had a single digit negative return. The company’s pump service business has weakened for two consecutive quarters and the general end market industry for pumps also has slowed down.

Schindler, usually a strong performer on the back of its leading market share in elevators and escalators manufacturing and maintenance business, had a flat return for

the first six months of the year. In China, although the government is implementing measures to cool off the real estate market and growth is slowing, the level of industrial activity is still strong. Schindler and its competitors are seeking to increase their market share in new installations in order to secure the lucrative service business down the road. As a result, prices are under pressure in that country. The current heavy investment phase at the company level is penalizing the performance of its stock for the moment.

Global capital investment uncertainties also have limited the performance of ABB, although its return of 12.92% for the first half of the year was still better than the total return for the industrial sector as a whole. The mining industry is in a cost cutting mode, and ABB has shown delays in large orders for its process automation division linked to this industry. ABB’s power system division, however, is a turnaround story and has started to see increases in its operating margins.

Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, Medical Technology

Since Swiss pharmaceutical stocks peaked at the end of May, the sector returned most of its outperformance during the second quarter. The recent market correction also can be attributed to profit taking after a significant outperformance of the sector earlier in the year. Still, the healthcare sector was the biggest contributor (7.65%) to the Fund’s return for the period, due to a combination of heavy weighting in its portfolio and

above market returns of 25.84% for the sector as whole. Roche and Novartis returned 32.1% and 21.15%, respectively, during the first half of the year. The mid-capitalization stocks also performed strongly during the period. In the biotechnology space, Actelion returned 33.36%, with new medical technology position Nobel Biocare and biotechnology position Basilea also contributing positively to results.

Roche has the largest capitalization in the Swiss market. The Basel-based company has a core business in innovative drug development and in vitro diagnostics. Management sees Roche as the technology leader in the development of cancer indications. The company is well positioned to dominate this market, where diagnostics will play an increasingly predominant role in hospitals and in private practices. In combination with a particular treatment, diagnostic tools are used to improve the clinical outcome of a patient population. With the combined approach of using the corresponding treatment to the diagnostic, drug providers have strong arguments to justify their higher prices to regulatory authorities. Novartis’ business model in pharmaceutical, vaccines and consumer health, offers diversification opportunities to investors. The company’s activity in generic drugs should provide upside potential, as its Sandoz division has invested significant resources in analytical technologies and in manufacturing to validate and develop processes for producing biosimilar drugs. For 2013, Diovan monotherapy, a treatment for high blood pressure,

is still benefitting from the delayed entry of generic competition in the United States. Investor confidence in the pharmaceutical division might improve once the full effect of Diovan generic is evident. There also is a potential to free up capital for higher dividend payments and acquisitions if the new management and chairman decide to sell their Roche stake and the activities that do not necessarily have critical mass, like the animal health business.

Construction & Materials and Chemicals

Both sectors were laggards in the Swiss market during the period. Holcim and Syngenta saw strong recoveries last year, but have since suffered from a high comparison base and weakness in some of their regional markets. In particular Syngenta’s top line in Europe was subdued in the first half of the year, while pricing was resilient. Strong exposure to Latin America in seeds and crop protection should help sector performance in the second half, although investors still need to be convinced about the synergies that can be extracted from management’s initiative combining seeds and crop protection under one roof. Together construction materials and chemicals contributed to 0.51% to the performance of the Fund for the period under review.

Banks

The banking sector was up 11.44% over the first half of the year, contributing 1.42% to the Fund’s performance. Despite ongoing litigation costs in the investment banking and

wealth management businesses, progress towards increasing returns on risk-weighted assets and controlling overall costs continued to support positive returns in this sector. The all-important wealth management franchises at UBS and Credit Swiss are resilient. Net new money grew in the mid-single digits despite outflow in off-shore assets in Europe. Gross margins in wealth management also developed positively, staying at a high level despite the changing business mix towards the very competitive on-shore markets like Asia.

Private Equity

Downward adjustments in the value of the Fund’s private equity portfolio had a slight negative impact on the Fund’s overall performance during the period. Private equity deal flow and activity in Switzerland has remained quite subdued in 2013. The reported transaction volume in the buy-out segment decreased in the second quarter, as a result of lingering uncertainty as to the European economic crisis. This challenging macro-economic environment has diminished the prospects for exits for venture-backed companies through public offerings compared to direct sales to strategic buyers. Timing for exits from the Fund’s illiquid holdings remain difficult to predict.

Food & Beverages

This sector, which includes Nestle and Lindt, contributed 1.45% to the Fund’s performance during the period, which is modest given the Fund’s overall allocation to these

companies. Although Lindt’s stock returned 20.96%, Nestle’s shares were up only by 7.85%.

Energy

The Fund’s allocation to energy companies resulted in a 0.64% contribution to its performance on the back the first signs of operational improvement at Weatherford, resulting in a strong performance for this new holding. Transocean’s total return year to date was 13.93%.

Macro-Economic Insights

So far 2013 seems a lot like 2012, a succession of risk-on and risk-off swings in investor behavior triggered, in part, by the lack of sustainable trends in macro-economic data. Gross domestic product expectations have fluctuated and so have liquidity expectations. The outlook for the amount of liquidity the Federal Reserve will continue to provide is very important, at least in the short term, in explaining the performance and risk of the different sectors and industries in the Swiss market.

Economic growth and inflation worldwide and in Switzerland

Worldwide economic growth decelerated at the end of the second quarter on the back of a meaningful slowdown in service sector growth. Manufacturing in China also has slowed, forcing China’s government to announce measures to support growth. A significant expansion in credit in recent years, especially in China, as well as a

strengthening of the U.S. dollar has heightened risks in emerging markets. In China, authorities appear to be increasingly focused on the sustainability of growth and longer-term structural reforms in order to prevent further build-up of a credit bubble. These political decisions would be bullish for the economy over the long run, but deflationary in the near-term.

The U.S. economy has continued to perform reasonably well despite a larger than expected tightening in fiscal policy. A major concern in the U.S. market has been the timing and degree of reduction of the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing policy. The Federal Reserve’s policy rate will likely remain at zero until the end 2014 or even longer as the national unemployment rate remains higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 6.5% and the inflation rate is nearly half of what the Federal Reserve estimates to be its tolerance threshold. However, the continued strengthening of the U.S. private sector underscores that the Federal Reserve’s suggested tapering of its Quantitative Easing policy could get underway this autumn.

In the Eurozone, the latest composite purchasing manager index (“PMI”) rose back into expansionary territory (i.e., above 50) with a broad-based upturn in manufacturing, providing encouraging evidence that the Eurozone could recover from its current recession later this year. The weakness of Europe’s economy has been due to significant fiscal austerity, a general unwillingness of banks to lend and the impact of ongoing

weakness in the global economy, particularly in Asia. While corporate demand for credit is still declining and the labor market situation remains dire in many countries, a gradual recovery hints at potential improvement in the months ahead. In terms of monetary policy, the ECB lowered its primary refinancing rate by 25 bps to 0.50% in May. Although the upcoming September election in Germany has delayed some key decisions on the Eurozone stagnation and a more accommodative stance by the ECB, including a possible expansion of its balance sheet, this negative drag is expected to ease in 2014 with the Eurozone backing away from fiscal austerity and policy makers gradually shifting towards more growth-oriented policies.

Swiss gross domestic product growth surprised positively, expanding by 0.6% in the first quarter, driven mainly by private consumption. Favorable labor market conditions, increases in active population and elevated savings rates continued to support robust consumer confidence. Net exports also contributed positively to the Swiss economy, helped by strong demand for pharmaceutical, chemical products, watches and jewelry, while some weakness occurred in services exports. Investments in construction (0.3% quarter-over-quarter) also remained extremely strong. From a business survey standpoint, while the Swiss PMI came in slightly short of market expectations, dropping to 51.9 in June down from 52.2 in May, the most important sub-component included in the June PMI (i.e. the backlog of orders) continued to point high-

er. Business sentiment in the construction sector once again reflected elevated and continued improvements, and weaknesses in the machinery sector have eased. Those surveys suggest a better state for the Swiss corporate sector going forward.

Swiss currency

On the monetary front, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) reserves have remained well controlled, at slightly more than 430 billion Swiss francs, and money supply is surging with M3 growing 11.6% year-over-year in June. While the SNB’s inflation forecasts remained well contained at -0.2% for 2013, 0.2% for 2014, and 0.7% for 2015, the SNB is likely to keep the policy rate low over the coming years, because it otherwise will be harder to defend the EUR/CHF 1.20 ceiling it imposed. However, if the euro risk premium were to decline substantially, the SNB might consider abandoning the exchange rate cap before tightening its interest rate policy.

Market and Sector Outlook

In the Fund’s last shareholder report, Management raised a question about the level of risk building in the financial system on the back of the expansion in currency carry trading. The strong negative reaction of the fixed-income markets and the high dividend paying stocks due to recent statements by the Federal Reserve Chairman underscore this high level of carry trade and front running in the system.

A reduction in the Federal Reserve’s liquidity policy should favor the relative

performance of value stocks and mid and small capitalization companies compared to the larger companies with higher dividend pay-outs and higher returns on equity because the valuation gap between value and growth companies is quite high historically. In addition, a tapering of the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing policy would signal a better economic environment and lower deflation risk which also is positive for cyclical value stocks. The relative performance of the different industry groups will otherwise depend on investors’ appetite for risk and their willingness to bear higher volatility for higher returns. Management, while very attentive to macro-level risks, continues to focus on producing long term performance for the Fund by looking for companies and sectors that can deliver above average performance over a full economic cycle.

Chinese reforms should continue to weigh negatively on the performance of the industrial sector, but Management expects that to be partially offset by a rebound in European demand. This rebound would help the euro appreciate against the Swiss franc, which should strengthen the Swiss export business.

Growth outlook for the heavily-weighted pharmaceutical industry is favorable based on expected annual earnings growth of between 4% to 6% in the next few years. In addition to analyzing company fundamentals, in selecting particular stocks in this sector Management also is focusing on

company development of health systems that will shape the future of healthcare models both in developed and emerging markets. With rising health expenditures in the developed markets, governments and public systems will need these products to implement necessary structural reforms. In the emerging markets, the expansion of the middle class and the increase in wealth will drive the demand for similar products.

Share Buyback

From May 10, 2013 through June 30, 2013, the Fund made open-market purchases of its common stock under its publicly announced 2013 stock repurchase program. $3.6 million was used to repurchase and retire 0.9% of the Fund’s outstanding shares, resulting in an increase to the Fund’s net asset value per share of $0.02. Share repurchases positively affected the Fund’s performance by 0.14%.

Sincerely,

Alexandre de Takacsy

President

Rudolf Millisits

Chief Executive Officer

New Investments by the Fund

Basilea Pharmaceutica AG

DKSH Holding, Ltd.

Emmi AG — Registered

Evolva Holding SA

Lonza Group AG

Meyer Berger Technology AG

Nobel Biocare Holding AG

Panalpina Welttransport Holding AG

Swatch Group AG

Tecan Group AG

Temenos Group AG

Weatherford International, Ltd.

Additions to Existing Investments

ABB, Ltd.

Actelion, Ltd.

Aravis Biotech II — Limited Partnership

Burckhardt Compression Holding AG

Novartis AG

Sulzer AG

Transocean, Ltd.

UBS AG

SelFrag AG, Class A, Series C

SelFrag AG, Class A, Series D

Zurmont Madison Private Equity, Limited Partnership

Securities Disposed of / Expired

Addex Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.

Adecco SA

Allreal Holding AG

Dufry AG

Geberit AG

Givaudan SA

OC Oerlikon AG

SGS SA

Swiss Re AG

Xstrata PLC

Reductions in Existing Investments

Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA

Credit Suisse Group AG

Holcim, Ltd.

Nestle SA

Roche Holding AG

Schindler Holding AG

Swiss Life Holding AG

Syngenta AG

Zurich Financial Services AG