Credit Suisse’s largest shareholder Saudi National Bank on Monday said there was “no impact” on its growth plans or profitability after the troubled Swiss lender was bought out by UBS.
“Changes in the valuation of SNB’s investment in Credit Suisse have no impact on SNB’s growth plans and forward-looking 2023 guidance,” SNB said in a statement to the Saudi stock exchange.
Credit Suisse announced on Sunday that UBS would take it over for “a merger consideration of three billion Swiss francs,” or about $3.24 billion.
After slumping on the stock market last week, Credit Suisse’s share price closed Friday at 1.86 Swiss francs, with the bank worth just over $8.7 billion. UBS said Credit Suisse shareholders would get 0.76 Swiss francs per share.
The Saudi bank said its statement came “in light of the recent market announcement with regards to Credit Suisse”, without directly mentioning the UBS buyout.
Saudi National Bank spent 5.5 billion riyals ($1.5 billion) on a 9.88 percent share in Credit Suisse in November.
As of December, the bank said the holding was less than 0.5 percent of its total assets and about 1.7 percent of its investments portfolio.
Last Wednesday, Credit Suisse’s share price plunged by more than 30 percent to a record low of 1.55 Swiss francs, after Saudi National Bank said it would not raise its stake in the group due to regulatory constraints.
The lender — Switzerland’s second-largest — later announced it would borrow nearly $54 billion from the nation’s central bank to provide “support”, before Sunday’s buyout was announced following crunch talks aimed at thwarting a wider international banking crisis.
“SNB remains comfortably above all prudential thresholds and continues to enjoy healthy capitalisation and liquidity,” the Saudi National Bank statement said, adding that its total assets topped 945 billion riyals ($251 billion).
“SNB remains focused on its core strategy of growth in Saudi Arabia, which is among the fastest growing countries within the G20.”
