Saudi Arabia just pulled the plug on the in person "Davos in the Desert" after weeks of Houthi attacks on its airports

The kingdom has scrapped in person attendance at next week's Future Investment Initiative and is now weighing a full postponement, per Reuters. The FT and WSJ are reporting the same, citing people familiar with the matter

FII is Saudi Arabia's flagship investment conference, set for its 10th edition in Riyadh. $Goldman Sachs(GS.US) CEO David Solomon, $Citigroup(C.US) CEO Jane Fraser and Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters were all on the draft speaker list

The Houthis have hit Riyadh's King Khalid airport 20 times since Oct 1, per the Saudi led coalition. Attacks on Saudi airports have killed 19 people and injured 364, including an Oct 10 strike that killed 13 and wounded 309, the deadliest attack in the kingdom since 2015

Wall Street pushed for this. Big banks and private equity firms privately raised safety concerns with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, per Semafor, and the final call sits with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Riyadh Fashion Week, an exhibition tennis tournament and the Misk Global Forum have already been called off, and the US advises against all but essential travel to the kingdom

FII is where Saudi Arabia sells its post oil future to global money, and the whole pitch is that the Gulf is a safe home for trillions in capital, data centers and AI buildouts. Missiles over the capital's main airport break that pitch. Oil traders have been pricing Gulf risk for weeks with Brent still near $108, and now it is showing up in the deal pipeline too. If the CEOs who fund those buildouts will not fly in, the money gets harder to raise

Source: StockMarket.News