Ajwa for Food Industries defies Egypt's collective stock decline

Despite unrest in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Ajwa share price rose by 9.98 per cent due to speculative trading ahead of a long-awaited court hearing

Defying the wave ofdeclines in Egypt's stock market, Ajwa for Food Industries company stock rose by 9.98 per cent in the first hour of Wednesday trade.
"This is due to speculative trading on the stock as the [court] appeal on the company's capital increase will be reviewed today," Nael Sedqy,senior equity trader with Naem Holding.
An economic court will today look into an appeal filed by Ajwa shareholders to halt renewed subscription in the company stocks, a suit that has been postponed eight times in the past.
Prices of the LE552 million cap stock reached LE5.51 per share, despite the collective decline of almost all traded securities on the back of bloody clashes between police forces and protesters around Cairo's Tahrir Square which erupted on Tuesday night.
The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) on Tuesday issued a decree forcing Ajwa's chairman to rebuy all the stocks he sold between 4 and 25 October 2010 at the average market price for that period.
Mohamed Bin Issa Jaber Al Jaber was fined on Thursday an amount of LE20 million ($3.4 million) for forging documents and spreading false information to boost Ajwa's share price.
The Saudi national was tried in absentia last December on charges of forging the records of a general shareholder assembly in November 2009 and was sentenced to two years in prison and a LE2 million fine.
Jaber appealed the conviction and will now have to pay a LE20 million fine instead of serving the prison sentence.