NPS Investing in 471 Foreign Companies
The National Pension Service (NPS) announced on Feb. 15 that the appraised value of its foreign stocks was 188,205 billion won at the end of November 2020, approximately 9.4 times as compared with the end of 2010.
In that period, the NPS substantially increased its direct foreign stock investment from 2,455.7 billion won to 65.8 trillion won. Its total assets, which had been approximately 324 trillion won in 2010, more than doubled to 807 trillion won until November 2020.
The ratio of foreign stocks to the total assets rose from 6.14 percent to 22.7 percent in about 10 years. Likewise, the ratio of its non-alternative overseas investment assets, that is, stocks and bonds, more than doubled from 10.23 percent to 28.6 percent.
As of the end of the third quarter of last year, it was investing in 471 foreign companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet, and the appraised value of its stocks in these companies was approximately US$38.1 billion. The appraised value increased about six-fold in six years. Specifically, the values in Apple, Microsoft and Amazon increased from US$192 million to US$2.32 billion, from US$111 million to US$1.74 billion and from US$36 million to US$1.55 billion, respectively.