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It is reported that the National Pension Service has made dozens of times profits by preemptively investing in the US electric vehicle company Tesla. The valuation gain alone is estimated to exceed 3 trillion won.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the financial investment industry on the 14th, the National Pension Service has invested in Tesla since 2014. The National Pension Service reported that Tesla held $7.92 million (about 8.8 billion won) in its stock status report (Form 13) filed with the SEC at the end of the third quarter of 2014. It is around 0.03% when considering the Tesla market cap.
The national pension is believed to have increased investment in Tesla since then. The total amount of Tesla’s total investment in the National Pension Service is revealed in detail in the investment status data for each overseas stock item, which the Fund Management Headquarters began to disclose in 2016. As of the end of 2016, the National Pension Service held 182.4 billion won worth of Tesla shares. It has increased the Tesla holdings to the level of 0.4%. The National Pension Service maintained the Tesla holdings of 0.42 to 0.44% until 2019.
Assuming that the National Pension System maintains its Tesla holdings to date, the rate of return is around 8000%. The cost of Tesla’s investment in the National Pension Service is only 10 dollars, considering the 5 to 1 par. Compared to the current stock price ($816.12), it is showing more than 80 times profit in six and a half years. The current valuation value is 3.3 billion dollars (about 3.5 trillion won), and it is calculated that the valuation gain is over 3 trillion won.
This can be interpreted as the result of the National Pension’s active management of Tesla with a high weight on its growth. According to the investment status of overseas stocks released by the National Pension Fund Management Headquarters, even in 2016, when GM’s market cap was larger than the Tesla market cap, the National Pension Service invested similar amounts in both stocks.
Tesla is a popular investment destination among domestic individual investors. According to the Korea Securities Depository, Seohak ants net bought more than $3 billion worth of Tesla stocks over the past year. Even this year, by the 10th of this month, Tesla stocks were bought for $1,048.35 million (about 1,160 billion won). This is more than the net purchase of second-place Apple ($637.49 million) and third-place TSMC ($284.37 million) combined.
Holdings also increased. As of the 10th, the balance of Tesla stock holdings of domestic investors was estimated at 10.066434 million dollars (about 11,8054 billion won). This is equivalent to 1.36% of Tesla’s market capitalization ($783.35 billion). It has a higher stake than Jennison Associates (1.28%), the seventh shareholder and Zeod Capital Management (1.22%), the eighth shareholder. At the end of 2019, the stake was only 0.19%.
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