The chairman of the National Bank of Saudi Arabia, Ammar al-Khudairi, resigned after two weeks ago his words about the prospects of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse provoked a sharp drop in the value of the shares of the credit institution and its further takeover by UBS bank.
Al-Khudairi’s place will be taken by the chief executive officer of the regulator, Said Mohammed al-Ghamdi. According to him, the resignation of the official who headed the national bank in 2021 after the merger of the two structures is due to personal reasons.
Credit Suisse announced significant deficiencies in its financial statements on March 13, amid the unfolding banking crisis in the United States. Commenting on this information, al-Khudairi stressed that the National Bank of Saudi Arabia, the largest investor of Credit Suisse, will refuse further investments in the bank.
Immediately after that, the shares of the financial institution collapsed by 30 percent. According to estimates at the beginning of last week, the kingdom lost more than a billion dollars on its investments.
In total, holders of risky Credit Suisse bonds suffered a loss of $ 17.3 billion. This is the largest loss in history for holders of securities. The previous record, set in 2017 by the Spanish lender Banco Popular SA, was exceeded by more than ten times.