Cairo: Some Egyptian and Saudi businessmen are threatening to freeze their investments in Egypt, in response to a travel ban issued by Egypt’s Public Prosecutor Talaat Abdullah on Sunday.
The Public Prosecutor banned 21 Egyptian and Saudi businessmen from travel and froze their funds for violating the rules of the stock market.
The decision was part of investigations into the sale of Watany Bank of Egypt for which the two sons of former president Hosni Mubarak, Jamal and Ala’a, and five others are on trial. Jamal and Ala’a, together with other officials from the bank’s board, were referred in May 2012 to a criminal court, charged with violating the stock market and Central Bank rules to illegally profit from trades on shares of Watany Bank of Egypt.
The Egyptian stock market submitted a list of their names to key financial institutions. An official from a stock market investment fund told Gulf News that the threats to freeze their investments may be an attempt to put pressure on the Egyptian government. The ban included Ayman Fat’hi Hussain Sulaiman, chairman of the Watany Bank of Egypt, the two sons of Hosni Mubarak, Ala’a and Jamal, Ala’a’s wife Heidi Rasekh and former Information Minister Anas Al Fiqqi.
Two Saudi businessmen, Abdul Rahman Al Sharbatly and Hassan Abdul Rahman Al Sharbatly, the owners of City Stars mall, are on the ban, as well as Hesham Al Sewedy, a Saudi-Egyptian, and Sulaiman Abu Nami, the biggest investor in the Egyptian stock market for the past 20 years, and Hassan Heikal, an Egyptian investor and son of the leading Egyptian journalist Mohammad Hasanin Haikal.
The ban also includes Arab businessmen such as Gormallah Al Zahrani, Maeedh Al Zahrani and Aidarous Al Essay. A source told Gulf News that the ban was also attributed to the mismanagement of economic affairs in Egypt and the lack of protection for serious investors, who are sometimes intentionally targeted.
“The names of some businessmen were intentionally dragged into the case without justification. Some of them have never met with Jamal Mubarak, and another has investments in Sharm Al Shaikh worth 5 billion Egyptian pounds (Dh2.66 billion). No one can predict how much damage this case will cause to investment in Egypt.” he added.
The source also said that four of the businessmen implicated in the case are among the biggest investors not only in the Arab world but globally, adding that the conditions for investment in Egypt are not good.
— Ayman Sharaf is an Egyptian Journalist based in Cairo
