National Pension Service Holds 30 Billion KRW Worth of SVB Shares... 'Stock Price Halved'

The National Pension Service was found to have held 100,795 shares of SVB Financial Group, which includes Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), as of the end of last year. Based on the stock price at the end of last year, the value was about $23 million (approximately 30.4 billion KRW), but the stock price on the 9th was about half of that period.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

According to foreign media including Bloomberg on the 12th, the National Pension Service purchased an additional 27,664 shares of SVB Financial Group last year. In particular, it was found that 19,884 shares were net purchased in the fourth quarter of last year. This was a low-price purchase during a declining stock price phase.

However, with SVB effectively bankrupt, the recovery of the entire investment has become uncertain. SVB Financial Group's stock price, which was close to nearly $600 a year ago, was around $267.83 on the 8th, but due to the bankruptcy impact, it plunged to $106.04 on the 9th. Since then, trading has been suspended.

Meanwhile, the government and the Bank of Korea expressed concerns that the SVB bankruptcy could lead to bank closures and increase market volatility. On the same day, economic and financial leaders including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Choo Kyung-ho, Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Joo-hyun, Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Bok-hyun, Bank of Korea Deputy Governor Lee Seung-heon, and Presidential Office Economic Secretary Choi Sang-mok held a regular meeting on macroeconomic and financial issues at the Bankers Hall in Jung-gu, Seoul, to assess the domestic impact of the SVB incident. Financial authorities are closely monitoring the potential impact on the domestic financial market but believe the effect will be limited since domestic banks are not involved in this incident and their capital soundness has been strengthened.

Financial authorities including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service have begun analyzing and reviewing the impact of SVB's closure on domestic and international financial markets. The Financial Supervisory Service plans to re-examine the domestic response situation as the SVB incident, while unrelated to domestic banks, could affect global financial markets.