The ramifications of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis have spread to Sweden. SVB's plunge wiped out more than half of the value of the holdings that Alecta — Sweden's largest pension fund — had in the bank. According to a Bloomberg report, Alecta, the fourth largest shareholder in SVB, lost 54 percent in terms of value of its stake after the Californian bank lost 60 percent in stock value on Thursday.

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According to the Bloomberg report, Alecta — which oversees more than $104 billion in assets — had doubled its holdings in SVB during the past year, ending 2022 with a holding worth $609 million. Right now, The value of Alecta's stake is worth only $279 million, notes the report.

Alecta played down any fears of this affecting its stakeholders, with its head of communications being quoted by Bloomberg as saying, “The holding represents less than 1 percent of our assets and will not impact our solvency metrics,” He confirmed that the pension fund has added to its SVB holding since it became a shareholder in 2019.

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This development comes just two days after Alecta told local media that it had offloaded its entire holdings in one of Sweden’s most conservative lenders, Svenska Handelsbanken AB, after 71 years, the Bloomberg report stated.

As per the report, "The pension group’s head of governance and sustainability, Carina Silberg, told newspaper Dagens Industri the group was focusing on American niche banks rather than traditional lenders."

Alecta is also the fifthlargest shareholder in First Republic Bank, a position it added to toward the end of last year, and the sixth-biggest owner in Signature Bank. Both of those banks also suffered steep one-day losses on Thursday, reported Bloomberg.

SVB Financial Group (SVB), which does business as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), scrambled on Thursday (March 9) to reassure clients that their money with the bank was safe after a capital raise caused a steep 60 percent collapse in its share value, wiping out over $80 billion in value from bank shares.

Also read: What happened at the Silicon Valley Bank and why does it matter?