Egypt’s Super-Rich Begin Moving Their Money To Switzerland

The wealthiest Egyptians are considering taking money out of the country to ensure their funds aren't seized if Mubarak goes, and apparently the favored destination for their assets is Switzerland, Bloomberg reports.

“We’ve been getting inquiries about moving money” from Egypt into Switzerland, a banker at Swiss bank, Arab Bank, said. He says a few clients inquired about transferring 10 to 15 million dollars each out of the country.

Though some of Egypt's richest have already fled the country, banks have been closed for almost two weeks.

But as soon as they open, Swiss bankers are expecting an exodus of funds. Apparently rich Egyptians, especially those close to Hosni Mubarak, are scared that should he step down, their funds could be in jeopardy.

The bank director told Bloomberg:

"There is a fear but only for a very few people. You 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."

UBS and Credit Suisse wouldn't comment on possible movements of funds into Switzerland from Egypt

A Tip For Elites Escaping Egypt: Leave The Gold At Home, And Stuff The Plane With Cash

Earlier today BI had a post on Hussein Kamal El Din Salem, an oil and hotel magnate who fled Egypt for Dubai with $500 million. One of our readers, Greg S., decided he'd try and plot out how Egypt's wealthiest businessmen looking to escape the civil unrest at home could get their cash or gold out of the country.

We've edited the message and highlighted the most interesting bits. Greg figured a G-5 (a popular business jet) couldn't take off with 'tons of gold'. He estimated that $1 million fits in a small duffel bag and about 100 of those would fill a G5's overhead storage bins. Here's what he came up with:

"Business is slow here, so just for fun I calculated the dollar value of gold and currency that you can stuff into a G5 and still take off with 18 passengers. The useful load of a G5 is 6500lbs and the baggage compartment is listed at 226 cubic feet.

Gold in a G5: [6,500lbs - 18*165 lbs passengers]*16oz/lb*$1300/oz = $73.4 million worth of gold (with no passengers you can roughly double the amount of gold)

Currency in a G5: 226 ft3 * 1728 in3/ft3 / 0.06891 in3 * $100USD = $566.7 million USD (you could still put more in the cabin).

No surprise that it makes sense to leave the gold at home. If you figure that 10-15% of the volume is going to go toward the actual suitcases this means that the entire baggage compartment of that jet was packed full of US cash."

If that's not enough, perhaps Egypt's wealthy could take bigger flights or find alternate ways of taking their money out.