credit suisseIts largest shareholder, the National Bank of Saudi Arabia, said stock market turmoil UBS’ claims are “baseless”.
“If you look at how the whole banking industry is going down, unfortunately, a lot of people are just making excuses,” National Bank Chairman Ammar Al Khudairy told CNBC hadley gambling Thursday.
“It’s a panic, a bit of a panic. I think it’s totally unfounded, both for Credit Suisse and for the market as a whole,” he said on CNBC’s “Capital Connection.”
His comments came hours after Credit Suisse announced it would take action “Act decisively” Borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion). Shares in the bank tumbled on Wednesday following reports that the Saudi bank said it could not provide any further financial assistance to Credit Suisse.
He added that the aftermath of the recent Silicon Valley bank collapse was different from the 2008 financial crisis, saying steps by U.S. regulators to protect depositors had further curbed fears of contagion.
“We did have a glitch last week, but it’s nowhere near what we saw in 2008. It was an isolated incident and regulators have cut off any possibility of spillover effects,” he said .
The message “No change”
The chairman of the National Bank of Saudi Arabia told CNBC that Credit Suisse had not asked for financial assistance.
“There have been no discussions with Credit Suisse about providing assistance,” he said.
“I don’t know where the word ‘aid’ comes from, there hasn’t been any discussion since October,” he said.
He reiterated that the bank will not sell its stake more than Currently 9.9%.
“The message hasn’t changed, it has been since October,” he said. “Even if we wanted to, there’s just too much complexity from a regulatory and compliance standpoint,” he said.