Kingdom Holding Co (KHC), the investment company of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, reported a fourth-quarter loss of almost SR31 billion ($8.26 billion) after Citigroup Inc. shares plunged in the credit crisis. Kingdom Holding fell 6.8 percent in Riyadh. The company reported earnings on the Saudi bourse website on Tuesday after the market closed. “The loss is phenomenal,” John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Saudi British Bank, said on the phone. “This is the biggest corporate story for Saudi Arabia in many years.” Citigroup lost more than 75 percent of its market value last year as its capital base was eroded by the credit crisis. The global bank recorded more than $85 billion in writedowns and losses tied to mortgage-related securities and was forced to accept $45 billion in US government rescue funds. Alwaleed is the largest individual investor in New York-based Citigroup. Kingdom Holding said Nov. 20 that Alwaleed planned to boost his Citigroup stake to 5 percent. Alwaleed is increasing his holding in the struggling bank after a year in which his investments failed to keep pace with regional benchmarks. Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding dropped 62 percent, more than Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All-Share Index. The net loss for Kingdom Holding compares with earnings of SR255.6 million in the year-earlier period, the company said. The full-year loss was SR29.9 billion, or SR4.75 a share. Kingdom Holding dropped to SR4.1 on Tuesday, bringing the decline in 2009 to 13 percent and giving the company a market value of SR25.8 billion. Kingdom Holding was also hurt by the decline in global stock markets. The company holds 7 percent of New York-based News Corp., Rupert Murdoch's media company, and 21 percent in Songbird Estates PLC. “It's not a surprise given how far global markets have fallen that some of his investments would see a drop of that magnitude,” said Emad Mostaque, a London-based Middle East equity fund manager at Pictet Asset Management Ltd., which oversees about $100 billion globally. Kingdom Holding, which sold 315 million shares at SR10.25 apiece in July 2007, is the ninth-largest company on the Saudi exchange by market value, lagging behind Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and Saudi Telecom Co., the two largest companies on the bourse. Forbes magazine estimated he was worth $21 billion in March, ranking him 19th among the world's billionaires.
