Khashoggi: HSBC boss says it's 'difficult' to disengage from Saudi despite killing

Saudi Arabia is unlikely to see significant impact on its foreign trade and investment flows following the killing of veteran Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the chief executive of Europe's biggest bank HSBC said on Monday.

"It has been a difficult few weeks for the kingdom, this has not been good for Saudi Arabia," HSBC CEO John Flint told Reuters in an interview.

"I understand the emotion around the story, but it is very difficult to think about disengaging from Saudi Arabia given its importance to global energy markets," he said.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. 

His death sparked global outrage and pitched the world's top oil exporter into crisis, putting the West's relationship with Riyadh into sharp focus given scepticism about Saudi Arabia's shifting explanations of the killing.

But while many global companies made a show of protest by withdrawing their top executives from a high-profile investment conference in Riyadh last week, industry and banking chiefs seem likely to continue courting the kingdom and its oil wealth as before.

While HSBC's Flint pulled out of the conference, the bank's investment banking chief Samir Assaf spoke onstage at the event.

An independent United Nations investigator said last week that Khashoggi was the victim of an "extrajudicial execution" carried out by the Saudi state.

Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on Thursday that the people who committed and orchestrated the killing "are high enough to represent the state".

Saudi Arabia has detained 18 people and dismissed five senior government officials as part of an investigation into Khashoggi's murder.

Some were members of a 15-man hit team, many of them Saudi intelligence operatives, who flew into Istanbul hours before Khashoggi's death, Turkish security sources have said.

'Tiger squad'

In new revelations, a Saudi source with intimate knowledge of his country's intelligence services told Middle East Eye about a death squad that operates under the guidance and supervision of Mohammed bin Salman.

Media companies including the New York Times and CNN pulled out of the Saudi investment conference because of growing outrage over Khashoggi's case.

British billionaire Richard Branson also announced that his Virgin Group would suspend its discussions with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund over a planned $1bn investment in the group's space ventures in light of the events.

HSBC has played an increasingly active role in Saudi Arabia in recent years. Flint said the bank will remain supportive of its local affiliate in the kingdom, Saudi British Bank (SABB).

The European lender has booked over $3bn in profit from its investment in SABB and around $170m in investment banking fees from the country since 2008, according to Refinitiv data.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, plans to more than double its investments in Saudi Arabia after it included the Gulf state in the fund's reference index, chief executive Yngve Slyngstad said on Friday.