Banks and firms across Gulf Arab nations sought to keep business links to Qatar open and avoid a costly firesale of assets...as a political freeze descended on the region. Many banks in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain suspended new business with Qatar soon after their governments cut diplomatic and transport ties with Doha...[I]t was still unclear...whether tens of billions of dollars of existing deals - from loans to bank deposits and cross-border shareholdings, as well as merchandise trade contracts - would have to be unwound, and if so how fast. That left bankers and businessmen in limbo as they continued to insist to clients that commercial links had not been severed, even though their ability to service these links was in doubt...Individual companies have big cross-border physical assets...Even where doing business with Qatar is still technically possible, it is becoming harder in practice...[F]oreigners who live in Qatar and have Qatari residence visas are not eligible for visas on arrival in the UAE...This makes moving staff around the region more difficult for multinational companies which in the past have saved money by treating Gulf Arab countries as a single market.