Tirana, Sep. 1 (AENews) – AMC Albania is to invest €50 million in
corporate bonds, which its majority shareholder Cosmote is expected to
issue, Cosmote in Athens announced today.

Lawyers in Tirana suspect this move may be an attempt not to escape the
distribution of the dividend, which entails the revenue tax. Last year,
the Albanian parliament approved new rules governing the dividend
taxation. According to the new Income Tax Law the dividend is taxable
if a company does not declare the reinvestment destination. According
to experts, this investment of bonds by AMC is an attempt at escaping
the dividend distribution.

Cosmote owns 85% of the company’s shares while the remainder is owned by the Albanian Government.

In five years of operation AMC has decided only one time to distribute
its dividend, which happened in March 2004 and was effective for the
2002 fiscal year.

"Under Albanian corporate law there are no dividend distribution
requirements. Dividend distributions are at the discretion of the
shareholders", – AMC noted in the company’s financial report for the
2004 fiscal year.

"No dividend distribution was declared in the 2002 and 2003 fiscal
years. On March 24, 2004 during an extraordinary general assembly, the
Company’s shareholders approved a dividend distribution of Lek
2,356,771 (Lek 2,221,257 net of taxes) from the 2002 fiscal year
profits", AMC’s 2004 Financial Results statement stated.

For the 2004 fiscal year, AMC revenues were estimated at €121.2 while net profits were reported at €35.5 million.

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