HSBC, Credit Suisse CEOs Follow Dimon and Ditch Saudi Conference - Bloomberg:
The chief executive officers of HSBC Holdings Plc and Credit Suisse Group AG became the latest top bankers to abandon an investment conference in Saudi Arabia as pressure grows on the kingdom amid allegations it killed a dissident journalist.
HSBC CEO John Flint will not be attending the Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh next week, spokeswoman Heidi Ashley said, and nor will Credit Suisse’s Tidjane Thiam, according to a person familiar with the matter. Both banks, among the biggest in Europe, are strategic partners of the conference and have close ties to Saudi Arabia. Standard Chartered Plc chief Bill Winters has also pulled out, a spokesman wrote in an email.
The withdrawals deal a severe blow to Saudi Arabia’s efforts to draw international financiers after JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon pulled out along with Blackstone Group LP’s Steve Schwarzman and BlackRock Inc.’s Laurence Fink. The fiasco around the conference shows how the kingdom is coming under mounting pressure to explain what happened to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a government critic who disappeared two weeks ago.
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