Magnus Billing, CEO of occupational pension company Alecta, was, like many others, quite surprised when Silicone Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed on Friday and was shut down by American authorities.
The company had nine billion kroner in shares invested in the niche bank, which was exposed to the bleeding tech sector in the US, when everything suddenly collapsed.
On Sunday, the next message came: Signature Bank, where Alecta had another three billion kroner invested, crashed.
- My assessment is that the shares will therefore have no value left in these companies, they are worthless, says Magnus Billing in an interview with SVT Nyheter's Johan Zackrisson.
"A failure"
He is self-critical but emphasizes that it all happened quickly and that there were few who had time to foresee what was about to happen.
- The market in general, including us, did not understand that there was such a big and strong fall that actually happened.
It went in 48 hours.
It was a spiral that went at a furious pace, he says.
- It is clear that it is a failure that we could not avoid these twelve billion in loss, there is no doubt about that.
“Absolutely not satisfied”
According to Magnus Billing, it is too early to say what went wrong.
Talks were held with Silicone Valley Bank about its problems as early as 2022, when the outflow of deposits increased while the bank's assets were in long US Treasuries that fell in value.
He emphasizes that the loss, however, constitutes a smaller part of the pension company's total portfolio.
- We can absolutely handle it easily.
But it is clear that twelve billion is a lot of money.
I have the utmost respect for the large amount, but in Alecta's total portfolio and our commitments to customers, this is a relatively small thing, he says.
- I am absolutely not satisfied.
This is not good for Alecta or for the trust in what we work with.
We want better than this.