Riyadh – Mubasher: Kingdom Holding Company’s (KHC) plan to borrow money for funding new investments has been suspended after the firm’s owner, Alwaleed bin Talal was arrested as Saudi Arabia started anti-corruption probe previously, Reuters reported, citing four informed banking sources as saying.

One of the sources stated that the financing was near SAR 5 billion ($1.3 billion).

“[KHC] had not asked any bank for a formal loan commitment,” Reuters reported, citing KHC's CFO, Mohammed Fahmy as saying.

“Terms of any financing deal were never finalised,” Fahmy added.

KHC asked banks to obtain a loan that would be secured through the stake it controlled in Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF).

“The loan deal would not go ahead until the situation facing the prince was resolved,” one of the four sources who is a senior banker at a Saudi financial institution concluded.