Saudi National Bank chair resigns just days after Credit Suisse comments sparked sell-off

Saudi National Bank Governor Amal Al-Hudairy resigned on Monday, days after his comments exacerbated a stock market crash at the troubled bank. swiss credit.

He will be replaced by SNB Managing Director and Group CEO Mohammed al-Ghamdi, while former Vice President Talal Ahmed al-Khereiji is now the SNB’s new CEO, according to an SNB statement to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). I am the CEO.

Al-Khudairy will resign “for personal reasons,” the bank said.

Al-Khudairy’s resignation hinted to Bloomberg in mid-March that the SNB could increase its stake in Credit Suisse as it battled a crisis of investor confidence that sent Credit Suisse shares plummeting. was made within days of commenting that the was low. The SNB chairman at the time said Saudi banks would not intervene “for many reasons other than the simplest of regulatory and statutory reasons.”

The comments fueled investor panic, causing Credit Suisse shares to drop 24% during the session, but said that as Credit Suisse’s largest shareholder it would not expand its holding beyond its 9.9% stake at the time. Despite effectively repeating the SNB’s previous position.

The Swiss bank was bought by Zurich rival UBS for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.2 billion) on March 19 in a late weekend union brokered by the Swiss government. SNB lost about 80% of its investment in Switzerland (more than $1 billion) during the acquisition of Credit. This is because UBS paid its shareholders a significant discount of just CHF0.76 per share under the terms of the relief agreement.

SNB, Saudi Arabia’s largest commercial bank, is the new product of the 2021 union of the National Commercial Bank and Samba Financial Group.

Saudi Arabia is encouraging the consolidation of financial institutions as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pursues a broad Vision 2030 to diversify the kingdom’s income and economic growth prospects away from hydrocarbon revenues.

— CNBC’s Hadley Gamble contributed to this article.