ASE gets EUR 6 bln of investments from Cyprus

The Athens Stock Exchange has seen EUR 6 bln of investments in Greek major company titles channelled through Cyprus, taking advantage of Cyprus’ comparatively low taxation rate compared to Greece.

Official data revealed by Greek authorities showed that by the end of January, the participation of foreign investors in the Greek stock titles was 40.83% or EUR 55 bln, up from 40.3% end of 2005.

The bulk of foreign investments amounting to 34% has been made through Luxembourg, 28% from the UK, 11% from Cyprus, 5% from the US, 12% through the Cayman Islands and 9% from Switzerland.

In January, net inflows from the US amounted to EUR 240 mln, from the UK at EUR 168 mln and EUR 98 mln from Sweden. On the contrary, there were net outflows from Greece to Norway amounting to EUR 113 mln and EUR 100 mln to the Cayman Islands.

With the total effective Cyprus tax rate at 19.5% for dividend paying companies of at least 70% of their profits, the Cyprus rate is significantly better than the Greek corporate tax rate of 30%.

The participation of foreign investors in the ASE/FTSE 20 stocks was even larger at 45.28% end of January or EUR 43 bln from 44.51% end of 2005. In the FTSE 40, the participation of foreign investors was 31.2% or EUR 6.44 bln from 31.07% end of December, while the foreign investors were holding 13.8% of the Small Cap 80 stocks worth EUR 709 mln, down from 15.35% end of December.

The value of foreign investor trading on the ASE in January amounted to EUR 4.1 bln, with net inflows amounting to EUR 522 mln in January alone.