JEDDAH: An administrative court has postponed the sale of a piece of land that is at the center of a row between the victims of an investment scam.

The land, in the northern Al-Shati district, was to be used to pay off almost 9,000 shareholders who had lost money due to a number of fraudulent investments by Al-Ajhouri. The company was running shareholding businesses that went bust. A court source claimed the judge in the case was trying to convince the shareholders to sell the land in an open auction and distribute the proceeds accordingly.

However, some of them want to be given pieces of the land according to the size of their lost investments instead. They also wanted the freedom to sell the plots whenever they wanted, the source added.

Apparently, differences among the shareholders in the past had already led to delays in the sale of the land.

“The judge in the case will not be able to fix a date for the open auction before he receives the consent of all the shareholders,” the source said.

The realtor assigned by the court to run the auction, Abdullah Al-Balawi, said those looking after the plot had not yet told him the date of the auction. He said the delay was also caused by a desire to wait for a suitable time commercially as property prices had fallen dramatically last year.

“We want to get a good price in order to be able to repay the shareholders,” he added.

Al-Balawi estimated the plot’s price at about SR100 million. Each of the 328 pieces is valued at SR300,000.

He added Al-Ajhouri had other commercial lands in Madinah but the judicial commission was only selling the plot in Al-Shati.

Al-Balawi said the revenue generated from the sale of the land would be distributed among 8,765 investors, including 4,168 from Al-Ajhouri-Makkah and 4,597 from its Swiss subsidiary.

He said the investors consisted of 5,142 Saudis and 3,623 foreigners. Disgraced head of the company Fuad Al-Ajhouri owed his investors SR849 million.

He was released from his 26-year prison sentence in Jeddah two years ago, before being jailed in Riyadh yet again on fraud charges.