Saudi National Bank appoints new chairman after Credit Suisse loss

Saudi National Bank, the largest shareholder in Credit Suisse before the bank’s rescue earlier this month, on Monday named a new chairman after the lender suffered significant losses on its investment.

CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Ghamdi will take over as the new chairman from Ammar Al Khudairy, who resigned for personal reasons, the bank said. Deputy CEO Talal Ahmed Al Khereiji takes over as acting chief executive, a bourse statement said.

All changes are effective March 27, and come nearly two weeks after Al Khudairy said the kingdom’s biggest bank by assets would not buy more shares in Credit Suisse on regulatory grounds.

The remarks were seen as a trigger to a further sell-off in the Swiss bank’s shares and exacerbated a crisis of confidence in the lender that had already seen clients pull more than $110 billion in the last three months of 2022.

Combined with global jitters in the banking sector and an already weakened share price, Al Khudairy’s comments contributed to Credit Suisse losing a fifth of its value, which eventually forced it into a takeover by its domestic rival UBS for $3.2 billion.

Saudi National Bank, which acquired almost 9.9% of Credit Suisse for 5.5 billion riyals ($1.46 billion) last November, has itself lost more than $26 billion in market value since Oct. 27 after committing to the investment.

By last week, it was sitting on a loss of more than $1 billion but said on March 20 that the drop in its investment’s value had no impact on its growth plans and would not affect profitability.

Al Khudairy also told Reuters earlier this month that the bank was not looking at any international acquisitions presently, and instead focused on its Saudi business.