Saudi Arabia

Credit Suisse Group AG plans to buy back about 5.9 billion francs ($6 billion) of debt issued after the financial crisis to the Qatar Investment Authority and Saudi Arabia’s Olayan family to cut funding costs, Bloomberg News reported. The bank will redeem the contingent convertible bonds -- which automatically become equity when reserves fall below pre-set levels -- on Oct. 23, the first opportunity to do so, according to a statement from the bank on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is primed to choose international banks to lend it $11 billion (€9.5 billion), filling the hole left by the delayed listing of state energy group Saudi Aramco and providing financing for crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious economic reforms, The Irish Times reported. The loans will be the first made to the Public Investment Fund, the vehicle used to drive the young prince’s vision for an economy less dependent on oil, which has placed bold bets on electric car maker Tesla, ride-hailing app Uber and space travel company Virgin Galactic.

Saudi Arabia has called off both the domestic and international stock listing of state oil giant Aramco, billed as the biggest such deal in history, four senior industry sources said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The financial advisors working on the proposed listing have been disbanded, as Saudi Arabia shifts its attention to a proposed acquisition of a “strategic stake” in local petrochemicals maker Saudi Basic Industries Corp, two of the sources said.

Saudi Arabia will introduce its first comprehensive bankruptcy law on Aug. 18 in a move designed to encourage foreign and domestic investment in private business, experts say. The move is also seen as providing a boost for competitiveness and jobs, and to help pave the way for the transfer of knowledge and skills as part of a drive to modernize the economy, Al-Bawaba reported.

A Saudi conglomerate can’t collect damages from a former manager it blamed for a multibillion-dollar fraud against 100 banks because the family-owned company was complicit in the scheme, a Cayman Islands court ruled. The 1,348-page ruling issued Thursday strikes at the heart of a dramatic, decade-long family feud over Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Co., known as AHAB, whose 2009 default was among the largest of the global credit crisis, Bloomberg News reported.

Saudi Arabia’s efforts to ease the burden on ordinary citizens from its promised economic overhaul are taking a toll on its balance sheet, Bloomberg News reported. The increase in the kingdom’s spending on wages and social benefits during the first quarter exceeded what it accrued through higher taxes and lower subsidies, driving the deficit higher to 34.3 billion riyals ($9.2 billion), from 26.2 billion riyals a year ago, according to a quarterly Finance Ministry report.

Swiss prosecutors have launched criminal proceedings against two officials at PetroSaudi International Ltd. related to alleged dealings with Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd, an escalation of the Swiss probe that started nearly three years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported. 1MDB is the subject of investigations in the U.S., Switzerland and other countries into allegations that billions of dollars were siphoned out of the fund, which was set up by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009.

Two Saudi Arabian-linked banks have become the first lenders with ties to the kingdom to sign a debt settlement plan with Ahmad Hamad al-Gosaibi and Brothers (AHAB), the company's chief executive said, opening the way for the conglomerate to try to push through a multibillion-dollar deal with creditors, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Bank creditors of detained Saudi Arabian tycoon, Maan al-Sanea, have asked his advisers for more details on a proposed settlement covering 16 billion riyals ($4.3 billion) in claims before they agree to move forward with the process, sources close to the matter said. Banks met in Dubai on Wednesday as they seek to resolve the debt crisis that has rumbled on since al-Sanea’s company Saad Group defaulted on its debt in 2009, Reuters reported.

Bahrain-based Gulf International Bank has sold its 513.6 million riyals ($137 million) claim against Ahmad Hamad Al-Gosaibi and Brothers, which has been locked in a near decade-long dispute with creditors, sources told Reuters. And now Standard Chartered, Dubai-based Emirates NBD and Bahrain’s Arab Banking Corporation are also seeking to sell AHAB debt totalling around 2.24 billion riyals, the financial sector sources said. AHAB and Saad Group both defaulted in Saudi Arabia’s biggest financial meltdown in 2009, with international and regional banks and other creditors owed about $22 billion.