LONDON, March 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The fate of Saudi National Bank’s (1180.SE) chairman may persuade other investors to maintain radio silence for a while. The lender on Monday said Ammar Al Khudairy resigned for personal reasons and will be replaced by current CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Ghamdi. The reshuffle comes less than two weeks after comments by Credit Suisse’s (CSGN.S) largest shareholder fuelled a panic by investors in the Swiss lender, prompting the government to orchestrate its cut-price rescue by rival UBS (UBSG.S).
Asked by a television interviewer whether Saudi National Bank would invest more money into Credit Suisse, Al Khudairy replied “absolutely not”. Technically, he was correct. As a near-10% shareholder of the Swiss lender, SNB would have faced regulatory hurdles to lifting its shareholding above that threshold. Nevertheless, jittery investors and customers took the comment as a sign of no confidence and fled.
Although SNB lost more than $1 billion on its Credit Suisse investment, Gulf investors are unlikely to stop investing in banks globally. Indeed, the Saudi bank was part of an investor group that proposed injecting around $5 billion into Credit Suisse as an alternative to the UBS deal, the Wall Street Journal reported. But big bank investors may avoid appearing on live television for a while. (By Karen Kwok)
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