One of Citigroup’s largest individual investors, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, exhorted U.S. regulators to sell their shares in the mega bank quickly, according to the magazine Emerging Markets. As DS News reported last month, Citigroup has already approached the federal government to work out a strategy for reducing its 34 percent stake in the bank. That move followed action by other banks, like Wells Fargo, that have sought to reverse instances of government intervention that came along with taxpayers’ stimulus funds. Citi accepted a total of $45 billion in bailout funding from the government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. In return, the company signed over 7.7 billion shares of preferred stock to the feds — shares whose dividend payments must be honored by the bank before it can pay returns to any other shareholders. Prince Alwaleed said that situation was bad for private investors and the economy at large.

“The earlier the U.S. government exits its investments in those companies, the better,” the influential Saudi billionaire said in his magazine interview, published on Sunday. “We need to give confidence back to the shareholders and investors that these companies are moving along without government support.” Alwaleed’s investment firm, Kingdom Holding Company, initially owned a 3.6 stake in Citigroup before agreeing to pump more capital into the storied financial institution in late 2007. In his interview, he said he expected the bank to operate at a profit as early as next year and to regain its standing as a market leader. “Citigroup has learned a huge lesson,” he said. “The worst is behind them right now.”