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Swedish pension giant loses 12 billion kronor from US banks’ collapse

The Swedish pension fund manager Alecta has estimated that its combined loss from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank could amount to 12 billion kronor, although it says this will not seriously affect customers' pension holdings.

Swedish pension giant loses 12 billion kronor from US banks' collapse
Alecta's offices in Stockholm. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT

“There is a lot indicating that we should consider these investments lost,” the fund manager’s press chief, Jacob Lapidus, told the TT newswire. Alecta also holds shares in First Republic, another US bank which is currently seeing shares in free fall. 

Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority on Monday morning called all of the country’s major bank and pension fund managers to a meeting to ascertain their vulnerability to US bank collapses. 

“We are seeing a certain drama and turbulence in the US banking markets,” said the authority’s acting director general, Susanna Grufman, in a press statement. “Our assessment is however that the stability of the Swedish financial system is not affected by this, because it has a significant amount of resilience.” 

Sweden’s financial markets minister Niklas Wykman told the TT newswire that the government was watching the situation closely, however. 

“So far we see no spillover effects to either the public sector or the financial system,” he said. “But we have to be on our toes and we will be following developments closely.”

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a favourite bank to US tech firms and a well-known lender to start-ups, went bust on Friday morning after being hit by a classic bank run, as its clients sought to withdraw $42bn in a single day, a quarter of its deposits. Signature Bank was shut down on Sunday, after suffering a similar bank run on the back of the SVB collapse.

Both banks have now been taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the US agency supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. 

Ole Settergren, head of analysis at Sweden’s pensions authority, Pensionmyndigheten, said that if there was no contagion to other banks, Sweden’s pension holders would not be seriously affected. 

“If this only concerns these banks, then it’s nothing which will affect Swedish pension savers who are in the public pension system,” he said. “At least if you don’t  hold your money in funds which own these banks, and there are certainly some funds like that in the pension system, but it’s a very marginal impact.” 

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Sweden’s most bizarre tourist attraction is up for sale – again

Have you always dreamed of owning an enormous Chinese-style building next to Sweden’s main motorway? You’re in luck, for Dragon Gate is again on the market.

Sweden's most bizarre tourist attraction is up for sale – again

Driving along the E4 motorway from Uppsala to Gävle on Sweden’s east coast is like this: forest, forest, forest, forest, GIANT CHINESE CONCRETE BUILDING, forest, forest, goat on fire.

The Dragon Gate saga began in 2004, when Chinese billionaire Jingchun Li bought the former Hotel Älvkarlen with the aim of turning it into a hotspot “where east meets west”.

But the building remained unfinished, with only a restaurant, museum (featuring an army of 200 replica terracotta soldiers) and a souvenir shop opening to customers at the time.

The construction of the hotel finished in 2014, but couldn’t open due to not meeting Sweden’s fire regulations, among other things. A few years later Li left Sweden, having fuelled 200 million kronor into the project, and the building was left practically deserted.

In 2017, it was bought up by Swedish construction development group Sisyfos.

Its biggest mark on Dragon Gate was to organise a techno festival at the venue, which vowed to be the culmination of “years of struggle” and to “go down in history”.

Then came the pandemic and the building was again left empty.

It is now again up for sale, reports regional newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning (UNT).

The price tag is 40 million kronor.

“We need someone who is as crazy as we were,” co-owner Thomas Sonesson told UNT.

Public broadcaster SVT reports that Dragon Gate has in fact been up for sale for a year, with buyers not exactly lining up for the chance to try to turn fortunes around for the building.

“We have to find the right buyer who wants to develop the project for the future,” Sonesson told SVT.

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