RIYADH: Maan Al-Sanea, the owner of Saudi-based private conglomerate Saad Group, reduced his stake in Samba Financial Group by at least 2.8 percentage points on Wednesday, stock exchange data showed.
Before Wednesday’s close Tadawul data showed that Sanea held a 7.8 percent stake in Samba, which is the country’s second biggest lender by market value. After Wednesday’s close Sanea’s name did not appear on the list of Samba shareholders holding stakes of 5 percent or more.
The reduction of Sanea’s stake in Samba follows a report on Wednesday by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television channel which quoted unidentified sources as saying that he had reached a settlement over debt owed to Saudi lenders.
It was not immediately clear if the apparent reduction of Sanea’s stake in Samba was linked to the reported agreement with local banks.
On Sunday Samba said that Saud Algosaibi, managing director of Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Bros Co. (AHAB), was no longer its chairman and had left the board.
AHAB is suing Sanea in a case involving allegations of $10 billion in financial irregularities, a legal battle that reached US courts and raised questions about Saudi banks’ lending practices.
Sanea, who also recently owned about 3 percent of HSBC, sold earlier this year stakes in UK-based homebuilder Berkeley Group Holdings Plc and in 3i Infrastructure Plc after his Saad Group and AHAB unveiled massive debt defaults. A Saad spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
The stakes of the other listed Samba shareholders, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) remained unchanged at respectively 22.9 and 11.4 percent.
Tadawul did not disclose details about Wednesday’s transactions on Samba. Stakes below 5 percent are not liable for ownership disclosure in Saudi Arabia.
According to its website, a transaction does not get disclosed to the public when a large sale order receives a price based on prevailing market conditions.
Meanwhile, Saud Algosaibi did not sell his 2.2 percent stake in Samba Financial Group, contrary to earlier media reports, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
“Saud Algosaibi’s share in Samba remains the same,” UAE newspaper Emirates Business reported, citing an unnamed person close to the Algosaibi family.