Citigroup to Keep Servicing Saudi Royal Family Despite Khashoggi Report: Fox’s Charles Gasparino

Andrew Caballero Reynolds/Getty Images

Citigroup will retain its relationship with Saudi Arabia’s royal family despite a new assessment that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“Among all the major large banks, Citigroup has some of the deepest business relationships with the Kingdom and its massive business empire,” Fox Business Network’s Charles Gasparino noted in a Wednesday report that broke the news. The family’s business includes petroleum production.

Citigroup is the fourth-largest bank in the United States after Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan.

The royal family is worth about $1.4 trillion, an amount equal to about 6 percent of America’s GDP last year. The amount under Citigroup’s management is not public, but, Gasparino pointed out, “analysts say it’s substantial.” They also say Citi “can’t afford” to lose the business due to its standing in the banking industry, as well as weak returns on its equity.

The bank has sought to cultivate its relationship with Saudi leaders as part of an effort to deepen its business in the region. Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal was the company’s largest shareholder in 2017, the same year that he was briefly incarcerated by his cousin, bin Salman, as part of an anti-corruption crackdown.

Despite the arrest, bin Talal rallied behind his cousin after Khashoggi’s death the following year, telling Fox News that he believed an investigation would deem him “100 percent vindicated and exonerated” of any involvement.

A U.S. intelligence report released last week deemed bin Salman responsible for Khashoggi’s killing. President Joe Biden has conveyed that he wants to “recalibrate” the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia in light of the report, but has declined to impose sanctions or take other measures against bin Salman, to the chagrin of Khashoggi’s fiancé and Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan.