Saudi National Bank chairman steps down due to ‘personal reasons’

Saudi National Bank has accepted the resignation of Ammar Al Khudairy as board chairman after obtaining a no-objection letter from the kingdom’s banking regulator.

Mr Al Khudairy said his departure was due to “personal reasons”. He was replaced by Saeed Al Ghamdi who resigned as the bank’s managing director and group chief executive, SNB said in a filing to the Tadawul stock exchange yesterday. Deputy chief executive Talal Al Khereiji will now serve as acting chief executive of the Saudi lender.

The management shuffle comes about two weeks after Mr Al Khudairy told Bloomberg TV that SNB, the kingdom’s largest lender by assets and a shareholder in troubled Credit Suisse, would “absolutely not” be open to further investments in the Swiss bank if there was another call to raise capital due to regulatory reasons.

The Swiss bank’s shares dropped to record lows and its credit spreads surged subsequently. A few days later, UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse in an all-share deal for $3.2 billion as part of a state-backed rescue deal.

SNB acquired the 9.88 per cent stake in Credit Suisse in October 2022 for 5.5 billion Saudi riyals ($1.46 billion) as a financial investment allocation within the Saudi bank’s investments portfolio.

The Saudi lender said last week that its growth plans and profitability were unaffected by the lower valuation of its investment following the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. Its investment in Credit Suisse accounted for less than 0.5 per cent of its total assets and 1.7 per cent of its investment portfolio as of December.

SNB’s total assets currently stand at more than 945 billion riyals. The Saudi lender said the impact on its capital adequacy ratio from the markto-market decline in Credit Suisse was 15 basis points as of December 2022, with “nil impact on profitability”.

Mr Al Khudairy, who has more than 30 years of experience, worked for various Saudi financial institutions such as Riyad Bank, United Saudi Bank and Banque Saudi Fransi before joining SNB.

He previously served as chairman of Goldman Sachs Saudi Arabia, Morgan Stanley Saudi Arabia and Allianz Saudi Arabia. He also founded Riyadh’s Amwal Al-Khaleej and Dubai’s Amwal Capital Partners.

Mr Al Ghamdi, who was appointed as SNB’s managing director and group chief executive in April 2021, earlier served as the chief executive and chairman of Saudi lender National Commercial Bank.

He also worked for Al Rajhi Bank and the Ministry of Defence and Aviation.

Mr Al Khereiji took over as deputy chief executive in 2021 after a stint at NCB as acting chief executive. Before this, he worked for the Saudi Central Bank.

The management shuffle comes two weeks after Ammar Al Khudairy said SNB would not raise its stake in Credit Suisse