Finance and Economic

The first-place party in Ireland’s national election expects to begin talks on forming a new government.

The initiative on Monday rests with Fine Gael, which has so far won 70 seats in the 166-seat lower house of Parliament. Results are not yet complete.

Fine Gael’s possible coalition partner, the Labour Party, has won 36 seats while the long-dominant Fianna Fail party suffered its worst election ever, with only 18 seats so far.

If Fine Gael gets its winning total up into the higher seventies, it could also opt to form a one-party government with backing from some of the 13 independents who have won seats.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

DUBLIN (AP) _ Opposition leader Enda Kenny has already shattered Ireland’s 80-year-old political monopoly. Now he faces an even more challenging assignment _ rebuilding Ireland’s economy, nearly brought to its knees by reckless property speculation and bank lending.

Defying doubters of his ability, Kenny rebuilt his Fine Gael party into a force that handed the ruling Fianna Fail party its worst defeat since 1932 in Friday’s national vote. He faces a decision within days on building a stable government that will respond to Irish voters angry and anxious over the nation’s economic freefall and subsequent bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

In victory, Kenny made big promises of a new style of government.

His administration will be “one of responsibility, not privilege; a government of public duty, not personal entitlement; a government looking with confidence and courage to the future, not with guilt and regret at the past,” Ireland’s next prime minister told delirious supporters late Saturday.

Only eight months ago, his Fine Gael colleagues thought so little of his leadership that they tried to oust him.

But the steely nerve and sharp tactics that Kenny displayed in rebuffing that challenge will be sorely tested as he works to assemble a strong government _ either with another party, or with the support of independents.

The latter option offers Kenny more opportunities to reward Fine Gael legislators with ministerial jobs. The temptation grows as Fine Gael wins more places in the 166-seat Dail, the lower house of Parliament; with 78 or more seats, going it alone is a viable option.

“We stand on the brink of fundamental change in how we regard ourselves, in how we regard our economy, and in how we regard our society,” Kenny said saving account pay day loan.

The vote count continued for a second day Sunday, with Fine Gael winning 68 seats and the Labour Party taking 35. Fianna Fail, which had won the most seats in every election since 1932 but was in power when Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” economy imploded, won just 17. Sinn Fein _ which supported the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland _ had 13, and independents and smaller parties had 17 seats.

Irish voters punished Fianna Fail for 13 percent unemployment, tax hikes, wage cuts and a humiliating bailout that will require years of austerity budgets.

Fine Gael has experience in governing in a coalition with Labour, and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore appeared eager to deal. The combination would offer Kenny an overwhelming majority, as well as a partner to share the heat when tough choices stir popular outrage.

Still, the new government, like the last, will be constrained by the terms negotiated for the euro67.5 billion ($92 billion) credit line from the European Central Bank and the IMF. The loan is contingent on Ireland cutting euro15 billion ($20.6 billion) from its deficit spending over the coming four years and imposing the harshest cuts this year.

Kenny has pledged to try to negotiate easier terms for repaying the bailout loan. He has also promised to create 100,000 new jobs in five years and to make senior bond holders in Ireland’s nationalized banks shoulder some of the losses.

Fine Gael said it would seek to balance public finances mainly through cuts, not tax hikes; it would also reform the health service and abolish 150 public bodies.

Kenny’s path to the top has been long and, in earlier years, slow moving. Kenny, then a teacher, was elected to the Dail in 1975 to take the place of his father, who had died suddenly.

In the 2002 election, in which Fine Gael lost 23 of the 54 seats it held in the Dail, Kenny reportedly had his concession speech ready but scraped by to win a seat. Elected leader that same year, he led a revived party to win 51 seats in 2007.

Chris Curtin, head of the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, said Kenny’s popularity was due to his reputation for straight dealing.

“He is seen as an incredibly honorable person, without any thread of anything untoward attached to him,” Curtin said.

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Probes by state attorneys general and other government agencies into banks’ foreclosure practices carry the risk of fines and other major costs, according to regulatory filings from three of the country’s biggest banks.

Revelations that major U.S. banks rammed through hundreds of foreclosures daily without giving many borrowers a fair shot at keeping their homes triggered investigations from all 50 states’ attorneys general and from state and federal regulators. They also sparked pressure from lawmakers and class-action lawsuits.

Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. called out possible financial repercussions in annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday. None of them provided any details on how much was at risk.

“Those investigations and any irregularities that might be found in our foreclosure processes, along with any remedial steps taken in response to governmental investigations or to our own internal assessment, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations,” Bank of America said.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank said it is dedicating significant resources to comply with investigations, and warned that the probes could result in “material fines, penalties” and expose the company to new lawsuits and more legal costs.

“Our costs increased in the fourth quarter of 2010 and we expect that additional costs incurred in connection with our foreclosure process assessment will continue into 2011 due to the additional resources necessary to perform the foreclosure process assessment, to revise affidavit filings and to implement other operational changes,” Bank of America said in the filing.

New York-based Citigroup said investigations and scrutiny of its own foreclosure processes have “resulted in, and may continue to result in, the diversion of management’s attention and increased expense, and could result in fines, penalties, other equitable remedies, such as principal reduction programs, and significant legal, negative reputational and other costs.”

Wells Fargo also said it is being investigated by several government agencies for its foreclosure practices.

“It is likely that one or more of the government agencies will initiate some type of enforcement action against Wells Fargo, which may include civil money penalties,” the company said in its filing. “Wells Fargo continues to provide information requested by the various agencies.”

The bank also said several lawsuits have been filed against it, claiming that Wells Fargo submitted fraudulent affidavits or other documents to foreclose on homes.

“Specifically, plaintiffs allege that Wells Fargo signers did not have personal knowledge of the facts alleged in the documents and did not verify the information in the documents ultimately filed with courts to foreclose,” the San Francisco-based bank said in the filing.

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How can contractors best manage their tax burdens ahead of the March 15 corporate tax filing deadline?

The recent economic climate has been especially challenging for contractors trying to manage cash flow. As the corporate tax deadline approaches, builders can deploy some strategies to manage their tax burdens and leverage new tax incentives. It requires thoughtful and nimble analysis but tax planning should take into account double bonus depreciation, which equals full expensing!

Lawmakers have extended and doubled bonus depreciation, allowing for full expensing for many assets placed into service through 2011.

Contractors should also review deferred-compensation plans. Most contractors are struggling to remain profitable in this difficult environment. If a company cannot afford large bonuses to retain key employees, it should revisit alternative compensation arrangements.

Certain S corporations should consider taking gains in 2011. Converters to S corporation status in 2004 or 2005 should think of selling “gain” property in 2011 easy payday loans. Special provisions enacted over the past two years provide a reduced seven-year period for sales that occurred in 2009 or 2010 and a five-year period for sales of property during 2011.

Take full advantage of capital asset expensing deductions. Rules originally intended for small businesses were significantly expanded to allow contractors to expense up to $500,000 of 2010 fixed asset costs, provided less than $2 million of assets were put in service throughout the year. Unlike bonus depreciation, this applies to new or used assets.

Maximize Section 199 deductions. That section’s domestic production activities deduction is a unique tax incentive available to most contractors. This incentive allows taxpayers to deduct 9 percent of qualifying production activities, including construction or substantial renovation of domestic real property.

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Foreigners fled the turmoil in Libya by the thousands on Wednesday, climbing aboard ships, ferries and planes or fleeing in overloaded vans to the country’s borders with Egypt and Tunisia. Tripoli’s airport was overwhelmed with stranded people seeking a way out.

Two Turkish ships whisked 3,000 citizens from the chaos engulfing the North African nation and a U.S.-chartered ferry arrived to evacuate Americans to the nearby Mediterranean island of Malta, a five-hour journey. Several countries _ including Russia, Germany and Ukraine _ sent more planes in to help their citizens leave the increasingly unstable situation.

“The airport was mobbed, you wouldn’t believe the number of people,” said Kathleen Burnett, of Baltimore, Ohio, as she stepped off an Austrian Airlines flight from Tripoli to Vienna on Tuesday. “It was total chaos.”

Turkey was cranking up the largest evacuation in its history, seeking to protect some 25,000 citizens and more than 200 Turkish companies involved in construction projects in Libya worth more than $15 billion. Some of the construction sites have come under attack by protesters.

Two Turkish commercial ships left the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi on Wednesday escorted by a navy frigate. The first one is expected to reach Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Marmaris around midnight. Authorities began setting up a soup kitchen and a field hospital at Marmaris and arranged buses to transfer the evacuees. Turkey has also sent two more commercial ships to Libya.

Turkey has now evacuated more than 5,000 citizens from Libya over three days, about 2,000 of them by plane, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

“We are carrying out the largest evacuation operation in our history,” he said, adding that Turkey was also helping other nations. “So far, a total of 21 countries have asked Turkey to evacuate their citizens as well.”

One Turkish citizen has been killed in Tripoli, he said. Davutoglu said Turkey was considering diverting its ships from Libya to Tunisia for quicker evacuation.

“We will then bring them from Tunisia by planes,” he said.

Davutoglu stressed that Turkey was not leaving Libya and would send “food and medicine to Libyan brothers by ships.”

Libya is one of the world’s biggest oil producers _ producing nearly 2 percent of the world’s oil _ and many oil companies were evacuating their expatriate workers and families.

China was also gearing up for a massive evacuation. There are reportedly 30,000 or more Chinese in Libya building railways and other infrastructure and providing oilfield services. Greece is making plans to help evacuate around 13,000 to Crete by ship.

China’s first chartered evacuation flight, staffed with relief officials and stocked with food and medicine, left for Libya on Wednesday.

Chinese media reports said a site run by China’s Huafeng Construction Co., Ltd. in eastern Libya was attacked by armed looters over the weekend who stole computers and other equipment and forced nearly 1,000 Chinese workers out of their dormitories.

The International Organization for Migration said several Asian, African and one European government requested its help to evacuate their citizens.

Migrants were pouring into Libya’s land borders with Egypt and Tunisia and the group was trying to help find accommodation for those already at the border, said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based organization.

Vans piled high with luggage and furniture showed up at the Salloum border crossing with Egypt.

Pandya said it was difficult to estimate how many migrants, many of them undocumented, would flee Libya, but “it will be thousands.”

The first planeload of Russians to be evacuated from Libya landed in Moscow, bringing 118 Russians. Three more planes are expected to arrive later in the day. A ship was also setting sail for Ras Lanuf, the site of Libya’s largest refinery and port, to evacuate up to 1,000 Russians, Turks, Serbs and Montenegrins.

Two French military planes evacuated 335 French people and 56 foreigners to Paris from Libya, and a third plane was en route from France to evacuate French tourists.

A Bulgaria Air plane, carrying 110 Bulgarians and six Romanians from Tripoli _ mostly medical and construction workers _ arrived in Sofia. Some passengers said they heard gunfights.

“I saw horror,” a nurse who gave only her first name, Polly, told reporters upon her arrival in Sofia.

Others fleeing were wary of the political situation. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has urged his supporters to strike back against the Libyan protesters, escalating a crackdown that has led to widespread shooting in the streets. Nearly 300 people have been killed in the nationwide wave of anti-government protests.

“We decided to return because the situation is unstable. When we left Tripoli there was some kind of euphoria, everybody was celebrating some kind of victory,” engineer Natalia Vakova said. “But that’s Libya _ absolutely unpredictable.”

Unease over the safety of U.S. citizens intensified after failed attempts to get some out on Monday and Tuesday. British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East’s largest airline, canceled flights to Tripoli on Tuesday.

Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Christoph Prommersberger said a Dutch KDC-10 air force transport plane left Tripoli late Tuesday with 32 Dutch evacuees and 50 other nationalities.

“What we hear from our people is it is chaotic but functioning,” he said of the Tripoli airport.

Britain is redeploying a warship, the HMS Cumberland, off the Libyan coast for a possible sea-borne evacuation of British citizens.

Italians continued to take Alitalia flights from Tripoli home, and a few hundred have already returned to Italy. An Italian air force plane landed in Libya on Wednesday to evacuate more people.

Separately, two Italian naval vessels are headed to eastern Libyan ports to rescue citizens from Benghazi and other cities where airports are damaged. Italian citizens based in Misurata, Libya, said their private company was arranging evacuation by sea because the airfield at that coastal city was damaged by the protests.

About 450 Romanians were in the process of being evacuated but some lived far away from Tripoli and it was not clear how they would get to the Libyan capital. Germany was also trying to evacuate about 150 Germans still in Libya.

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Bahrain and Libya’s sovereign credit ratings were cut as the two Arab countries struggle to contain anti-government protests. Persian Gulf and North African stocks declined.

Bahrain’s long-term rating was reduced by one level to A-, the fourth-lowest investment grade, and the short-term rating lowered to A-2 at Standard & Poor’s Ratings. Libya’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings were cut to BBB, two notches above non-investment grade, from BBB+ at Fitch Ratings. The MADEX Free Float Index in Morocco tumbled 3 percent, the most in two years, at the 3:30 p.m. close in Casablanca. The Bloomberg GCC 200 Index of Gulf stocks lost 0.4 percent, bringing the seven-day drop to 5.3 percent.

“Certainly perception of risk is only increasing,” Alia Moubayed, senior economist at London-based Barclays Capital, said in a telephone interview. “Investors will not take any sort of half solutions to be enough for calming their sense of risk aversion in the region.”

In Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, clashes between protesters and security forces have left more than 200 people dead in the past week, according to Human Rights Watch. The unrest followed popular uprisings that led to the toppling of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak this year. Demonstrators have also taken to the streets in Bahrain, Yemen, Morocco and Iran.

Oil Climbs

Analysts warned of the risk of unrest spreading to Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter. Oil for April delivery rose for a fourth day in New York on concern supplies will be disrupted by turmoil in the region. Crude climbed as much as 5.3 percent to $94.47 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, seven opposition groups were drawing up demands to put to the government as they discussed the regime’s call for dialogue, Ebrahim Sharif, head of the National Democratic Action Society, said yesterday. Protests have been led by the Shiite Muslim majority, which says it is discriminated against by Sunni rulers.

“We expect the demonstrations that have taken place over the past month will persist, despite the government’s use of force to clear the protesters from central Manama,” S&P said in an e-mailed statement today. The debt was placed on credit watch with negative implications, meaning it may be lowered again.

Bahraini Yields Soar

Bahrain’s 10-year dollar bond maturing in 2020 fell for a 10th day, with the yield climbing 16 basis points to a record 6 low interest rate personal loans.79 percent at 8:04 p.m. in the capital Manama. The yield on Bahrain’s 6.247 percent five-year Islamic bond rose 17 basis points to 4.1 percent, according to Bloomberg composite prices.

“It is normal following any political or economic development that the credit rating agencies would review the ratings,” Central Bank Governor Rasheed al-Maraj said in an e- mailed statement yesterday. “However we believe that the economic fundamentals of the Kingdom of Bahrain remain strong and that the short-term economic and political developments should not entirely reflect on the review.”

Bahrain’s benchmark stock index dropped 0.4 percent, the most since Feb. 3. The market had closed by the time S&P cut the rating. The cost of protection against a default by Bahrain rose 9 basis points from the Feb. 18 London close to 313, according to CMA. Credit default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a government or company fail to adhere to its debt agreements.

Libya Protests

Muammar Qaddafi’s son called on protesters in Libya to engage in dialogue or face a civil war that risks the country’s oil wealth, as violence escalated amid reports protesters seized control of the second-biggest city. Security forces and protesters fought overnight in the capital, Tripoli, with snipers shooting from rooftops and gunmen opening fire from vehicles carry pictures of the Libyan leader, the Associated Press said, citing witnesses.

“The downgrade reflects the eruption of political risk evidenced by the increasing momentum of the popular uprising aimed at ending Qaddafi’s 42-year rule,” said Charles Seville, director in Fitch’s Sovereign Ratings Group. “The rating watch negative reflects the wide range of possible political outcomes.” Libya has no government debt, Fitch said.

Dubai’s benchmark stock index dropped to the lowest level in almost six months, leading a decline in the Persian Gulf. Tunisia’s measure fell 1 percent.

Egypt T-Bills

In Egypt, the Ministry of Finance raised 5.5 billion pounds ($934 million) in treasury bills at an auction today. The ministry sold 3.5 billion pounds of 364-day bills at an average yield of 12 percent, the highest since November 2008, compared with 10.6 percent when the tenor was auctioned on Jan. 25, according to central bank data on Bloomberg. Two billion pounds of 182-day notes were sold at an average yield of 11.73 percent from 11.78 percent last week, the data show.

Egypt’s stock exchange hasn’t decided when to resume trading and hasn’t found any legal grounds to cancel trades that took place on Jan. 27, the last day stocks traded, Chairman Khaled Seyam said today.

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Federal prosecutors have ended a criminal investigation of Countrywide Financial Corp. co-founder Angelo Mozilo, a person close to the investigation said Friday.

The federal official told The Associated Press that the probe launched in 2008 into the actions of the former chief executive of the housing giant during the mortgage meltdown has been closed with no indictments. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was never publicly announced, and the Department of Justice as a policy does not announce the closing of investigations.

In October, Mozilo agreed to a $67.5 million settlement to avoid civil trial on fraud and insider trading charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but prosecutors pursuing the criminal case against him found that his actions did not amount to crimes.

The SEC’s charges alleged that the 72-year-old Mozilo and two other former Countrywide executives who also settled profited from doling out risky mortgages while misleading investors about the dangers.

The three men admitted no wrongdoing under the settlement, and it allowed them to avoid the risk of a verdict that could have been used by the prosecutors who would eventually drop the investigation.

Mozilo attorney David Siegel said he could not speak directly to the federal criminal investigation or the SEC charges, but maintained that Mozilo had done no wrong in the cases the former chief executive still faces.

“We continue to litigate various matters in which Mr. Mozilo has maintained his innocence and denied any wrongdoing, and we continue to believe that the facts bear that out,” Siegel said.

That litigation includes several civil lawsuits, some filed by investors in Countrywide’s mortgage-backed securities.

The shelving of the investigation was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The son of a Bronx butcher, Mozilo co-founded Countrywide 41 years ago and watched it grow into the nation’s largest home loan originator, writing one in six of the nation’s mortgages totaling more than $490 billion by 2006.

But the Calabasas, Calif.-based company spiraled into disaster as investors suddenly realized many homeowners wouldn’t be able to repay mortgages that required no proof of income or down payment, and offered adjustable rates that quickly made monthly payments unaffordable.

Bank of America Corp. bought Countrywide and inherited its scores of toxic mortgages in July 2008.

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Ameren Illinois on Friday asked regulators for permission to increase electric and natural gas rates by $111 million a year.

The St. Louis-based utility is seeking a $51 million increase in natural gas delivery rates and $60 million in electric rates. If approved, the increase would raise the monthly bill for typical residential customers by $2.96 to $3.78 per month, on average, for electricity and $1.88 to $4.53 per month for gas.

Customers will receive notices in April showing more precisely the effect of the proposed increases on their monthly bills, Ameren said.

The Illinois Commerce Commission has 11 months to rule on Ameren’s request, so new rates likely wouldn’t take effect until early 2012, the utility said.

Craig Nelson, senior vice president for Ameren Illinois, said the utility is sensitive to the impact of higher rates on customers. But “we must have the financial ability to provide a safe and reliable energy delivery system that will accommodate future economic growth and development.”

Ameren serves 1.2 million electric customers and more than 800,000 natural gas customers in the southern two-thirds of Illinois.

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U.S. government bonds may post losses like those seen in 1994 if “vigorous” economic growth causes the Federal Reserve to change policy, said Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

“I’ve been around for 30 years and that includes having gone through 1994 when we probably had about the only savage bear market in bonds” over those three decades, O’Neill, 53, said in an interview in London today on Bloomberg Television’s “On The Move” with Francine Lacqua. “There are a number of circumstances that could lead to a repeat of that, probably the most important one being a very dramatic recovery in growth.”

Treasuries lost 3.3 percent in 1994, according to data from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch & Co., as the Fed almost doubled the target for the federal funds rate to 5.50 percent in response to inflation threats. Treasuries returned 5.9 percent last year even after a 2.7 percent loss in the fourth quarter, the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch data show.

“If we have continued signs of a vigorous U.S. recovery, at some stage the Fed’s going to change their view of the world, and that’s what caused the damage in 1994,” O’Neill said. “So I’m very mindful and on the lookout for that because it might not be very pleasant if it happens.”

Bull Market

Pacific Investment Management Co. Co-Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross said last month that while he anticipates the end of the bull market in bonds, it’s not the beginning of a significant bear market as economic growth and government stimulus fail to translate into broader employment gains. Pimco reduced its holdings of government related debt to the lowest level since January 2009 last month.

O’Neill said today the U.S. won’t suffer the same fate as debt-stricken euro-area members over its budget deficit. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund last year approved rescue packages for Ireland and Greece after concerns about mounting shortfalls pushed up bond yields and eroded confidence in the single currency.

European leaders meet on March 11 at a special 17-nation euro-region summit to agree on a comprehensive package to resolve the region’s debt crisis.

“I don’t think we have a sovereign-debt crisis in Europe. It’s a crisis about European Monetary Union structure and leadership,” O’Neill said. “It’s a test in some ways of Germany’s desire and if Germany stands behind this thing in March full square and simple, European bonds will turn out to be one of the best investments this year.”

In a separate radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene today, O’Neill said mounting concerns about a pickup in global inflation was “good” because it will prompt policy makers to act.

“If one of the consequences of getting out of this mess is that we sow the seeds for a big pickup in inflation, undoing arguably the best thing that’s happened to the whole world, developed and developing, in my 30 years, that would be bad,” he said. “But in that sense, we’re all sort of vigilantes and I think it’s very difficult for inflation to pick up significantly because it forces a policy response to stop it.”

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Ivory Coast’s incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who is clinging to power, has sued the West African regional bloc over recognizing his rival candidate as the winner of the country’s recent election.

A lawyer for Gbagbo filed the lawsuit Monday in the Economic Community Of West African States’ Court of Justice in Abuja, Nigeria. The suit asks judges there to void the decision by the regional bloc, known as ECOWAS, to recognize Alassane Ouattara as the winner of a Nov cheap business cards. 28 presidential run-off election.

Ivory Coast has been gripped by political crisis since the election. An electoral commission said Ouattara won and the U.N. supervised the election and certified the result. A constitutional council later overturned the results and declared Gbagbo the winner.

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Switzerland has frozen whatever assets Hosni Mubarak and his associates may have there, and anti-corruption campaigners are demanding the same of other countries. But experts say hunting for the deposed Egyptian leader’s purported hidden wealth _ let alone recovering it _ will be an enormous task.

Mubarak’s actual worth remains a mystery. A recent claim that he and his sons Gamal and Alaa may have amassed a fortune of up to $70 billion _ greater than that of Microsoft’s Bill Gates _ helped drive the protests that eventually brought him down.

“Oh, Mubarak, tell us where you got 70 billion dollars!” protesters chanted in demonstrations before Egypt’s ruler of 30 years was driven from office Friday, and left Cairo for a gated compound in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Corruption was endemic in Mubarak’s Egypt where 40 percent of the country’s 80 million people live on $2 or less a day, and critics accused officials of usurping the nation’s wealth. Egyptians have long complained of an unspoken policy of sweetheart deals that allowed top officials and businessmen to enrich themselves.

In recent days, watchdog groups and private lawyers have demanded that the country’s chief prosecutor launch criminal investigations against the Mubaraks and some of their wealthy associates. Scores of former government officials have already been banned from travel and several, among them four former Cabinet ministers, have had their assets frozen.

How far these investigations will go ultimately depends on the political will of Egypt’s leadership, said Eric Lewis, a partner with Washington-based law firm Baach, Robinson & Lewis, which specializes in international asset tracing and has done work in Kenya and Pakistan.

“What you often find is that while there’s a kind of political impetus that seems to want to do it, the reality is that the real urge for transparency is more symbolic than real,” Lewis said.

Far-reaching corruption probes could test the resolve of senior military officials who are running the country in the transition period. Some warn that a purge of Egypt’s tycoons could make economic recovery from the political crisis more difficult.

Anti-corruption campaigners are calling for a speedy investigation and are urging countries other than Switzerland to freeze assets pre-emptively. “It’s going to be a very difficult task, but in the interest of public money, things need to move now,” said Omnia Hussien, Egypt expert at the advocacy group Transparency International.

The Mubaraks have never publicly discussed their assets. Hosni Mubarak’s official monthly salary as president, counting benefits, came to 4,750 Egyptian pounds ($808), in 2007 and 2008, according to a Cairo think tank.

Rumors of hidden riches, such as expensive real estate in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, were fueled by the cozy ties between the Mubaraks and Egypt’s business elite. The sale of state companies and public land for cheap, starting in the 1990s, were key sources of enrichment for the two sides, said Ahmed Elsayed Elnaggar, editor of Egypt’s Economic Report.

“Privatization … is the biggest corruption process in Egypt all over its history, from the period of the pharaohs, until now,” he said.

In the past six months, two leading real estate companies have seen projects challenged in court over such alleged links.

In a case that captivated the country, Talaat Moustafa Group saw its $3 billion planned Madinaty community challenged on claims it was illegally awarded to the firm without the required bidding process, at a loss of $26 billion to the public coffers.

The country’s highest administrative court upheld a ruling that the government had to re-offer the land, a decision that threatened to cast doubt on more than 100 other such projects in Egypt. Instead, a government-appointed committee re-awarded the contract, essentially on the same terms, arguing that it was in the national interest to retain the existing ownership and that TMG’s work on the land had altered its value low interest personal loan.

TMG had been headed by Hisham Talaat Moustafa, a former parliament member who was subsequently stripped of his immunity and sentenced to 15 years for ordering the murder of his Lebanese diva girlfriend.

Palm Hills Development, specializing in upscale residential compounds, faced a similar case _ and its ownership structure is a case study of the ties between public officials and the business world. Relatives of the recently fired housing minister and of a transportation minister who resigned in 2009 either hold stakes in or are on the board of one of the major shareholders of Palm Hills.

Mubarak’s younger son, 47-year-old Gamal, set himself up as the director of a London-based investment firm called Medinvest Associates Ltd. in 1996, but resigned in 2001. Said Kaba, a current director of Medinvest, said the company is no longer linked to Mubarak’s relatives, telling the Sunday Times in London that he knew little about the family’s possible U.K. investments.

Medinvest, based in a stone-front building in London’s swank Knightsbridge neighborhood, is listed as having one employee and 50,000 pounds sterling (nearly $80,000) of issued capital _ the minimum needed to get a trading certificate, operate a business and borrow. The company’s profit and turnover weren’t disclosed. Its net assets were valued at just over 225,000 pounds (nearly $360,000).

Gamal Mubarak is listed as the owner of 28 Wilton Place, a six-story Georgian townhouse a few blocks from Medinvest’s office.

The Cairo-based Mideast investment bank EFG-Hermes said Gamal Mubarak holds an 18 percent share in a subsidiary, EFG Hermes Private Equity. The bank said Gamal Mubarak’s relationship with the company began in 1997, before he entered politics, and was made public at the time. The banks said it “does not manage funds for the Mubarak family, nor has it received _ directly or indirectly _ any benefits or special consideration from the Egyptian government.”

Gamal Mubarak entered politics in 2000 and quickly rose to the top of his father’s ruling National Democratic Party. He was fired from the party’s political bureau last week in what appeared to be a failed attempt by the regime to buy time and defuse public anger.

While corruption complaints up to now have focused on former top officials, Egyptian lawyer Ibrahim Youssri said he is seeking a criminal investigation of the Mubarak family. Youssri said the general prosecutor agreed to meet with him Monday to review the evidence.

“This is a really positive sign,” Youssri said.

Officials in the prosecutor’s office were not immediately available for comment.

Egypt can only start the long process of recovering assets once it launches criminal investigations, said Daniel Thelesklaf, who heads the Basel-based International Center for Asset Recovery. After that first step, Switzerland can release bank information, to be followed by the return of assets following convictions, he said.

Last month, after the ouster of another Mideast autocrat, Tunisia’s Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, Switzerland froze the bank assets, estimated at $620 million, of former Tunisian government officials.

Thelesklaf said recovering assets has become easier in recent years, with the adoption of international anti-corruption conventions. Egypt is a signatory, and so are the United Arab Emirates, touted as a possible retirement refuge for Mubarak.

The responsibility lies with the Egyptian authorities to get an investigation started, said Thelesklaf, noting that other countries with limited resources, such as Haiti and Nigeria, have managed to repatriate public funds. “If Nigeria can do it, Egypt can do it,” he said.

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