NPS sells entire General Electric stake in Q2

The National Pension Service, South Korea’s public pension scheme, divested its entire 11.5 million shares in General Electric as of end-June, a regulatory filing showed Wednesday.

The world’s third-largest pension fund no longer held a share in Boston-based conglomerate General Electric, which was the 66th-largest stake it built with a $151.6 million valuation in March, according to quarterly filings submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

GE gained a shareholder approval for a 1-for-8 reverse stock split in May, which went into effect on July 30. During the second quarter, the share price of GE rose to as high as $14.35 apiece in late May, up from $13.13 at the end of March, and has since begun to be on a downtrend.

The NPS also held zero share in cancer treatment developer Varian Medical Systems, which completed its merger into Siemens Healthineers in April. Siemens Healthineers had offered Varian shareholders $177.50 per share in cash as its $16.4 billion deal closed.

On the other hand, NPS bought 1.1 million shares in semiconductor firm Marvell Technology during the second quarter, which was nonexistent in the first-quarter filing.

Meanwhile, the NPS’ combined stock holdings in the United States jumped by nearly $5 billion to $52.6 billion during the second quarter.

The NPS was holding a stake in 505 US-listed companies. None of the entries other than GE and Varian showed a decrease in the amount of stock holdings by the NPS.

The NPS is the largest institutional investor in Korea with its total assets worth over 890 trillion won ($762 billion) under management as of May. Its exposure to foreign listed stocks came to around 25 percent.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)