"Given our role as co-lead plaintiff, our aim is to maximize recoveries of all investor losses," Tangen added.
Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, Oslo, "suffered significant losses" in its investment in SVB "due to certain misrepresentations of financial conditions and risk management made by SVB's former executives, directors, financial advisers and outside auditor," NBIM said in the news release.
GPFG owned about 1% of the outstanding shares of SVB Financial Group, the parent company of SVB, at the end of 2022, according to data on NBIM's website. That stake amounted to about 1.36 billion Norwegian kroner ($138 million) in shareholding value. GPFG also owned about 1 billion kroner in SVB Financial Group's corporate bonds.
"It is important for us to take legal action where the alleged conduct raises significant concerns about market integrity," said Carine Smith Ihenacho, NBIM chief governance and compliance officer, in the release. "We have clear expectations towards the companies we are invested in and see this as a part of being a responsible investor."
NBIM added that it has a staff of "in-house U.S. litigators, who will ensure the effective oversight of this litigation."
On March 10, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation took possession of SVB, citing "inadequate liquidity and insolvency." The action marked one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history. SVB had total assets of about $209 billion as of Dec. 31, 2022.
AP7 has a total of 900 billion Swedish kronor ($86.2 billion) in assets, according to its 2022 annual report.
Neither NBIM nor AP7 could not be reached for further details.
