Swiss creditSaudi National Bank’s largest shareholder said the stock market turmoil of the Swiss lender was “unjustified”.
“If you look at how the whole banking sector went down, unfortunately a lot of people were just looking for excuses,” Saudi National Bank chairman Ammar Al Khudairy told CNBC. Hadley Gamble THURSDAY.
“It’s panic, a bit of a panic. I think it’s totally unwarranted, either for Credit Suisse or for the market as a whole,” he said on CNBC’s “Capital Connection.” .
His comments come hours after Credit Suisse announced it was taking “decisive action” borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion). Shares of the lender plunged on Wednesday after a report that the Saudi bank said it could no longer provide financial aid to Credit Suisse.
He added that the recent fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse was different from the 2008 financial crisis, saying steps taken by US regulators to protect depositors have contained new fears of contagion.
“We had a failure last week, but that’s far from the case, nothing like what we saw in 2008. It’s just an isolated incident, regulators have cut off any possibility of overflow,” he said.
The message has “not changed”
The president of the Saudi National Bank told CNBC that Credit Suisse had not requested financial assistance.
“There has been no discussion with Credit Suisse about providing assistance,” he said.
“I don’t know where the word ‘assistance’ comes from, there hasn’t been any discussion since October,” he said.
He reiterated that the bank will not take its stake beyond the current 9.9%.
“The message hasn’t changed, it’s been the same since October,” he said. “Even if we wanted to, there are too many complications from a regulatory and compliance perspective,” he said.