SUNDAY TIMES WEB DESK:Saudi businessman Khalid Nahas has been named the chairman of the newly-established Binladin Group Global Holding Company, which is 36.22 per cent owned by Istidama, a finance ministry subsidiary, and 63.78 per cent by Binladin Company for Development and Commercial Investment.
Only two Bin Laden brothers, Saad and Abdullah, are represented on the new nine-person board, the document from the kingdom’s commerce ministry reveals, in a break from the family’s exclusive control over its earlier company, Saudi Binladin Group (SBG).
The stake owned by Istidama reflects the ownership relinquished by brothers Bakr, Saleh and Saad last year after they were arrested in the corruption purge led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
SBG, which for decades built Saudi Arabia’s roads, mosques and palaces, is crucial to ambitious new plans for major tourism and infrastructure projects. It is not connected to Osama, one of the younger brothers in the family.
Other board members of the new entity include senior Saudi businessmen with experience at some of the kingdom’s most successful companies like state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco, petrochemical producer Saudi Basic Industries Corp, and property developer Jabal Omar Development Co.
Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan told Reuters in December that SBG would soon have a “normal board” with family members and representatives of government ownership after a five-member committee restructured its governance.
That committee was led by Abdulrehman al-Harkan, a former chief executive of Riyadh-based developer Dar Al Arkan, who is not on the new company’s board.
Jadaan left open the possibility that the Binladin company could eventually be listed on the stock market.