The president of Saudi National Bank, Credit Suisse’s largest shareholder before UBS’ acquisition, at the beginning of the month, resigned from his position, the banking entity announced on Monday in a statement posted on the Riyadh Stock Exchange. published.
The statement added that Ammar Abdul Wahed Al Khudairy’s resignation was “for personal reasons” and was accepted by the Saudi National Bank’s board of directors.
The note adds that the bank’s CEO, Saeed Mohammed Al Ghamdi, will be the new chairman of the board from Monday, while Talal Ahmed Al Kheriji will hold the position of executive director on an interim basis.
Some statements by Ammar Abdul Wahed Al Khudairy triggered the crisis that led to the sale of Credit Suisse to rival UBS.
A day later, in statements to CNBC, the Arab banker attempted to placate investors, arguing that his words merely repeated the same message that the Saudi National Bank has been broadcasting since last October and that they were used as excuses to create panic that, in his view, opinion it was “completely unjustified”.
The Saudi National Bank, 37% controlled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, had acquired a 9.88% stake in Credit Suisse last fall for CHF 1,400 million (EUR 1,415 million), as part of the capital increase funded by the Swiss entity had been launched and whose value has significantly diminished after the collapse of the bank’s share price.
Over the weekend, Switzerland’s financial sector regulator Finma admitted it is analyzing the possibility of holding Credit Suisse’s managers accountable for management errors that led to the bank’s collapse.
UBS’ acquisition of Credit Suisse came on the heels of the banking turmoil in the United States, which led investors to sell securities of institutions considered weak links in the banking system, such as Credit Suisse, which had been piling up problems for two years.
Source: DN
