The president of the Saudi National Bank resigns

Ammar Al Khudairy, chief executive officer of the Saudi National Bank (SNB), is stepping down for “personal reasons,” Bloomberg reports.

“Personal reasons” could be a code word for “Credit Suisse” in this case, as Al Khudairy has been doubly struck by the CS drama. On the one hand, the Saudi National Bank was CS’s largest shareholder. On the other hand, a statement made by Khudairy in a TV interview in mid-March caused the share price of the Swiss bank to fall by more than 30 percent. Hours later, the Swiss National Bank announced it would lend Credit Suisse CHF 50 billion to protect its finances. Later, Swiss authorities finally agreed with its biggest competitor UBS to take over the ailing CS. There was an emergency sale.

“Absolutely not”

The Saudi National Bank, which only became involved in the capital raise last year, announced in an interview with Bloomberg TV that further capital injections for CS would be categorically ruled out.

The reason: the regulatory issues that would arise if the stock were just below 10 percent. When asked by a journalist if he would support Credit Suisse if there was a need for additional liquidity, the president of the Saudi National Bank said:

After this statement, the CS share crashed.

Khudairy is replaced by former Saudi National Bank manager Saeed Mohammed Al Ghamdi.

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