Orascom Construction Industries, (OCIC) the company transferring its stock listing to Amsterdam from Cairo, said it didn't get any additional tax claim after Egypt reportedly banned its chief executive officer from travel. “The Egyptian Tax Authority has submitted a tax claim to the company to pay 4.7 billion pounds related to the sale of Orascom Building Materials Holding to Lafarge SA (LG) in 2007," the company said in a statement on its website. “To date, the company has received no additional claim with any different tax liability related to the sale." Orascom Construction said it filed an appeal against the claim, which is under review by the Egyptian Tax Authority's appeal committee. The company said it's “confident that it did not violate any laws pertaining to the sale." Billionaire CEO Nassef Sawiris and his father and former Chairman Onsi were banned from travel and placed on an arrivals watch list, Moustafa Dweidar, a spokesman for Egypt's Public Prosecutor's office, said yesterday. The Sawiris' are accused by Finance Minister El-Morsi El-Sayed Hagazy of owing 14 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.1 billion) in back taxes, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported yesterday. Orascom Construction, Egypt's biggest publicly traded company, said in the statement it “received no formal notification about a travel ban" on Nassef and Onsi Sawiris related to the sale of Orascom Building Materials. The company, which has construction and fertilizer units, represents about a quarter of the EGX 30 Stock Index. Capital Gains Orascom Construction sold its cement unit in December 2007 to Lafarage for 8.8 billion euros ($11.4 billion) after it was relisted on Egypt's exchange in October of that year. The company said in the statement that under law number 91 of 2005, “all capital gains resulting from the sale of shares listed on the Egyptian stock exchange are tax exempt; consequently the sale of Orascom Building Materials Holding to Lafarge in 2007 is exempt of any capital gains tax." President Mohamed Mursi said in an Oct. 6 speech that the government is seeking to recover money it's owed by companies. While not identifying any company, he said one of them avoided paying tax on a profit of about 80 billion pounds from the sale of an asset by listing it on the stock exchange two months previously. Orascom Construction is in the process of transferring its shares to Amsterdam from Cairo, giving shareholders the option of exchanging their stakes for stock in Amsterdam-based OCI NV or selling them to a group of investors led by Bill Gates' Cascade Investments LLC for 280 pounds per share. The group, which includes Southeastern Asset Management and Davis Selected Advisors, has committed $2 billion toward buying stock. Bloomberg
