The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the Kingdom's central bank, continues to freeze the bank accounts of Saad Group and its chairman Maan Al-Sanea after the conglomerate reached a deal with local lenders last week, a top official said. “We froze the bank accounts,” Mohammed Al Jasser, governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, or SAMA, said late Monday in Abu Dhabi. “They are still frozen.” Bankers familiar with the matter said last week that Al-Sanea had reached an agreement with local banks to settle about SR9.7 billion ($2.59 billion) in outstanding loans. “I understand there has been a settlement. We're not party to it,” Al-Jasser said. – Agencies adding that “as a central bank, we only did what came to us as a request to freeze accounts.” A London-based spokesman for Saad Group and A-Sanea declined to comment. The deal put to rest part of some $20 billion in loans from local and international institutions that were extended to Saad Group and another Saudi conglomerate, Ahmad Hamad Al Gosaibi & Brothers Co., or AHAB. Both were overleveraged as liquidity dried up and assets plummeted amid the global credit crunch and recession. Al-Jasser also said that SAMA has maintained its freeze on accounts in the kingdom belonging to the partners of AHAB, which is also in dispute with creditors over alleged unpaid debts. A US-based spokesman for AHAB was unreachable for comment.
