The board of directors of Saudi British Bank (SABB) has approved a decision to buy 4 million of its own shares to allocate within its employee stock long-term incentive plan.

The bank told the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) that the ordinary shares would be purchased using its own resources.

SABB said voting on the share purchase would take place at an extraordinary general assembly, to be announced at a later date.

The bank reported a loss of SAR 4.168 billion ($1.111 billion) in 2020, after a profit of SAR 2.736 billion in 2019.

A Tadawul statement on the loss said it was driven by an impairment of goodwill of SAR 7.418 billion recorded in the current year.

The one-time accounting loss does not affect the bank’s capital, liquidiry or funding, nor the strategic strengths and competitive advantages, the statement added.

The bank’s merger with Alawwal Bank was announced in 2019 and was completed last month.

(Writing by Imogen Lillywhite imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com; editing by Daniel Luiz)

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