UBS extends $9bn credit line to former Qatar prime minister

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

UBS has agreed to extend a $9bn credit facility to Qatar’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, as the Swiss lender tries to retain the Middle East’s most affluent investors in the face of staff quitting for rival banks.

Sheikh Hamad, also known as HBJ, is a long-term client of both UBS and Credit Suisse, which was rescued by its Zurich rival this year. He had a combined credit line with both banks of $6bn, and UBS has recently agreed to increase that by 50 per cent, according to people familiar with the terms.

HSBC this summer poached Aladdin Hangari, the former head of Qatar for Credit Suisse and a key relationship manager in the region with close links to HJB and the Qatar Investment Authority, which was one of Credit Suisse’s largest shareholders.

Ali Janoudi, who used to be regional head of UBS’s wealth management business, recently left for Swiss private bank Lombard Odier.

UBS’s wealth management head Iqbal Khan shook up the leadership of the Middle East operations over the summer following the takeover of Credit Suisse, having been under pressure to keep staff from both banks happy who were competing for the same roles.

The new deal with HBJ — which was first reported by Bloomberg — was partly about rebuilding relations with the sheikh after his family lost millions of pounds on the collapse of supply chain finance funds linked to defunct group Greensill Capital two years ago.

HBJ had invested $200mn in the funds, which packaged up invoices owed by Greensill’s customers into investment products.

A distant cousin of the emir in the ruling clan and one of the Gulf state’s richest men, HBJ’s wealth is put at $1.3bn by Forbes, but widely believed to be many multiples of that.

HBJ ran QIA when it first took a stake in Credit Suisse during the global financial crisis.

His son, Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, was a board member of Credit Suisse for seven years, representing Qatari interests at the bank. He recently abandoned a long-running bid to buy Manchester United.

UBS declined to comment while a representative for HBJ did not respond by the time of publication.

UBS has recently temporarily banned staff from taking work trips to the Middle East and cancelled several events in the region because of security concerns as the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalates.