(Bloomberg) \u2014 Egypt\u2019s rich are considering taking money out of the country as violent protests against President Hosni Mubarak enter a 10th day, and Switzerland is a popular destination, a Swiss-based Arab banker said today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been getting inquiries about moving money\u201d from Egypt to the Alpine nation, said Karim al-Korey, an associate director at Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. \u201cI have two or three clients who could transfer 10 to 15 million dollars each.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two Arab Bank (Switzerland) executives sent an emailed statement disputing al-Korey\u2019s comments after they were published, saying he was not authorized to speak publicly for the firm.<\/p>\n
His comments as published do \u201cnot represent the official position of the bank,\u201d wrote Alain Dargham, the head of investment advisory, and Jean Kamitsis, head of wealth management. \u201cWe formally deny the content.\u201d<\/p>\n
Protests against Mubarak have left about 300 people dead and hundreds more injured in the past two weeks. Egypt\u2019s ruler has replaced ministers and promised free elections before stepping down in September. That hasn\u2019t calmed protesters who say his 30-year presidency must end immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything in Egypt is now closed but we think banks could start to reopen on Sunday. If this is the case, we expect funds to come in,\u201d al-Korey told Bloomberg by telephone from his Geneva office. If Mubarak goes, \u201cpeople all over the region will get scared and start transferring money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frozen Assets<\/p>\n
Switzerland on Jan. 19 froze any assets belonging to Tunisia\u2019s ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his entourage. Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after a popular revolt ended his 23-year rule.<\/p>\n
Most Egyptians close to Mubarak aren\u2019t worried that their funds will be seized abroad and still see Switzerland as the safest haven, al-Korey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a fear but only for a very few people,\u201d the banker said. \u201cYou are talking about Mubarak, his sons, and Ahmed Ezz, the richest man in Egypt, as well as maybe 10 or 15 of the top businessmen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ezz, chairman of Ezz Steel, was among the businessmen ousted from cabinet and ruling party positions yesterday. UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland\u2019s biggest banks, declined to comment on possible movements of funds from Egypt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Business partners of Egypt’s ruling party have started to take their money out of the country, according to Bloomberg. Ethiopia’s super rich who are looting the country in partnership with the Woyanne ruling junta have been doing that for a while now. We have previously reported (read here) about one of them, Samuel Tafesse, who […] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7911],"tags":[8038,8143,8597,9294,2237,9791,9839,4410],"class_list":["post-31576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","tag-alain-dargham","tag-arab-bank","tag-credit-suisse","tag-ezz-steel","tag-hosni-mubarak","tag-jean-kamitsis","tag-karim-al-korey","tag-zine-el-abidine-ben-ali"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-8di","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}