Credit Suisse  to Rehire Badr to Head Push Into Saudi Stocks

(Bloomberg) -- Ahmed Badr is set to rejoin Credit Suisse Group AG in Dubai four years after Renaissance Capital hired him from the Swiss bank as part of a push into Saudi Arabian stocks.

Badr will become a managing director and be responsible for boosting the Zurich-based lender’s equity operations in the Middle East and North Africa, according to two people with knowledge of his move. They asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The Saudi Arabian equities market will be his biggest priority, according to one of the people.

Renaissance confirmed that Badr is leaving the company, without giving details. Badr and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Under Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, Credit Suisse has cut thousands of jobs in its Global Markets unit in the last three years as part of a restructuring. Even before Thiam took over in 2015, the lender was scaling back in Dubai amid a slowdown in trading volumes that saw Badr join Mikhail Prokhorov’s Moscow-based Renaissance Capital.

Badr has been head of Middle East and North Africa equities at Renaissance since 2014 and previously spent seven years working for Credit Suisse in Dubai, eventually becoming head of equities in the region. Sales trader Karim Osman will relocate to Riyadh from London to work on the equity sales desk, which will seek to make two new hires in the Saudi Arabian capital, one of the people said. Another person will also be sought for research, the person said.

The focus on Saudi Arabia comes as more foreign investors set up a presence in the country before its inclusion as an emerging market in indexes compiled by MSCI Inc. and FTSE Russell, which could result in billions of dollars in inflows. The biggest economy in the Middle East is embarking on economic transformation plan that seeks to reduce the kingdom’s dependence on oil and turn it into a financial powerhouse.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net;Filipe Pacheco in Dubai at fpacheco4@bloomberg.net;Matthew Martin in Dubai at mmartin128@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, ;Stefania Bianchi at sbianchi10@bloomberg.net, Vernon Wessels

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