Alecta, which manages occupational pensions in Sweden, is at risk of a multi-billion dollar hit after two niche banks have crashed in the US.
Last Friday, the tech-heavy Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed, where Alecta has invested over nine billion kroner and is the fourth largest owner.
Now the pension giant states to SR Ekot that they have also invested an additional three billion kroner in the New York-based cryptocurrency bank Signature Bank, which was closed by American authorities on Sunday.
According to CNBC, the United States Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the banking supervisory authority FDIC announce in a joint statement that the bank, which is one of the most important in the crypto industry, is being closed as part of limiting the consequences of the crisis in SVB.
At the same time, the country's authorities state that both SVB's and Signature's customers must be protected and that no losses will be "borne by taxpayers".
However, shareholders are not protected.
Alecta in an internal meeting
What happens to Alecta's holdings in the bank is currently unknown, but it is clear that Signature's share price fell by 22 percent in Friday's trading.
On Monday morning, the pension company holds an internal meeting as a result of the crisis.
Alecta abandoned its shares in the Swedish Handelsbanken and Swedbank in the spring of 2022 to continue investing in the American banking sector.
- What exactly in our analysis of this investment has gone wrong, we of course need to try to understand, and are not completely done yet, said Jacob Lapidus, head of external communications and press at Alecta, to SVT Nyheter on Friday.
SVT Nyheter is looking for Alecta.