How it started
History
The Arab National Bank traces its origins to a foreign branch of the Arab Bank in Jeddah, which opened in 1949. Although the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments held stakes in the bank, the Arab Bank was not spared the wave of nationalization that saw all foreign-owned banks transferred to local ownership in 1979. One of the founders is Prince Khalid, son of Prince Turki bin Abdulaziz. Early on, both the Governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait took on small stakes in anb of about 10% each. Despite this and despite being pan-Arab in its orientation, anb was unable to escape the policy limiting foreign ownership. In 1980, it transferred its six branches to the newly created anb. Arab National had a service agreement with anb that expired in 1988 and was not renewed. Arab Bank owns 40% of the bank and some 5000 Saudi shareholders own 60%. In 2002, the Governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait own about 8% of anb between them. anb has opened a branch in London. Its largest shareholder (40%) is Arab Bank and headquartered in Amman, Jordan.
From Wikipedia’s article on Arab National Bank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2