DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The chairman of Saudi Nationwide Financial institution has resigned for “private causes,” a regulatory submitting stated Monday, simply after his feedback on Credit score Suisse despatched that agency’s inventory cratering and finally noticed rival UBS to accumulate the agency.

The resignation of Ammar al-Khudairy at Saudi Nationwide Financial institution, the biggest industrial financial institution within the oil-rich kingdom, comes simply months after the lender invested a further $1.5 billion in Credit score Suisse to take its holding within the Swiss financial institution to almost 10% of its worth.

Whereas al-Khudairy sought to make clear his remarks after making them March 15, they triggered Credit score Suisse shares to drop by round a 3rd of their worth on the time and fueled its final collapse. The incident additional spooked worldwide markets already reeling from different financial institution collapses and excessive inflation introduced on partly by Russia’s battle on Ukraine.

The submitting on Riyadh’s Tadawul inventory trade stated al-Khudairy would get replaced by Saeed al-Ghamdi, the financial institution’s chief government. It didn’t elaborate on al-Khudairy’s departure, solely saying it got here “as a result of private causes.” Al-Khudairy couldn’t be instantly reached for remark and Saudi Nationwide Financial institution didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Saudi Nationwide Financial institution inventory traded over $12 a share Monday. That they had been as excessive as practically $22 a share during the last yr.

Shares of Credit score Suisse sank over 30% after al-Khudairy instructed Bloomberg on March 15 that its greatest shareholder — the Saudi Nationwide Financial institution — wouldn’t present extra money to the Swiss lender.

“The reply is completely not, for a lot of causes exterior the only cause, which is regulatory and statutory,” al-Khudairy stated on the time. “We now personal 9.8% of the financial institution. If we go above 10%, all types of recent guidelines kick in, whether or not or not it’s by our regulator, or the European regulator or the Swiss regulator. ”

He added: “There’s a glass ceiling and we don’t intend entertaining of going past that.”

Hours later, Switzerland’s central financial institution agreed to lend Credit score Suisse as much as $54 billion to shore up its funds.

The following day, al-Khudairy instructed CNBC: “It’s panic, a bit little bit of panic. I imagine utterly unwarranted, whether or not or not it’s for Credit score Suisse or for the whole market.” However the injury was already carried out.

Banking large UBS on March 19 stated it might purchase Credit score Suisse for nearly $3.25 billion. That is whilst Credit score Suisse had some $1.4 trillion belongings underneath administration on the finish of final yr.

Gulf Arab buyers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been amongst a few of these hardest hit by Credit score Suisse’s collapse.

“The Saudi Nationwide Financial institution was a prime stakeholder … and now faces over $25 billion of losses. The Saudi conglomerate Olayan Group additionally had a 3.27% stake in Credit score Suisse,” Oxford Economics stated Thursday. “The Qatar Funding Authority had a 6.8% holding and was a serious landlord for the financial institution’s London department. Nevertheless, we anticipate the turmoil to be contained to short-term monetary market disruption with restricted spill over.”

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Observe Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.