Consortium Which Includes Banks in Arab Countries Buys Nearly 10% of Stocks in Reynolds Securities

A Paris-based international consortium, half of which is made up of banks in oil-rich Arab states, including the Persian Gulf principalities, Saudi Arabia and Libya, has purchased nearly 10 percent of the common stock of Reynolds Securities International one of America’s largest securities organizations.

The transaction was announced today by Reynolds’ chairman, Robert M. Gardiner, who stressed that the sale was a private arrangement between a group of individual shareholders who wanted to liquidate and that Reynolds itself was not a participant.

Gardiner said, however, that the sale of 500,000 shares was welcomed by Reynolds because it would serve as a channel through which petrodollars will flow into constructive investments in the free world. He noted that “insider” shareholders of Reynolds continue to own approximately 50 percent of the outstanding voting securities.

The purchase was made by Banque Arabe et Internationale d’Investissement (BAII), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the consortium, Compagnie Arabe et Internationale d’Investissement (CAII). The Arab interest in BAII, amounting to 50 percent, includes the government of Abu Dhabi; three Kuwaiti banks:one Lebanese bank; the National Investment Co. of Libya and the Gumhouria Bank of Libya; banks in Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia, Sudan and the National Commerce Bank of Saudi Arabia.

Non-Arab participants include the Bank of America and banks in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, West Germany. The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Spain Switzerland and Barclay’s Bank of the United Kingdom.

Yves Truffert, chairman and chief executive director of the BAII, which was incorporated in 1973, noted that its primary objective was to promote fruitful financial cooperation between the Arab and non-Arab world.