South Korea’s national pension fund, the National Pension Service saw the portion of the country’s major business groups in its stock investment portfolio drop sharply last year due to the sluggish stock market, data showed Wednesday.

The NPS’ holding of stocks in the affiliates of the nation’s top 30 conglomerates took up 62.1 percent of its local stock investment at the end of 2014, down 3.7 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by conglomerate tracker CEO Score.

In monetary terms, such stocks owned by the country’s largest institutional investor amounted to 52.66 trillion won ($48.36 billion) at the end of last year, down 2.56 trillion won, or 4.6 percent, over the cited period, the data showed. The drastic decline came as the two biggest conglomerates ― Samsung and Hyundai Motor ― staged poorer-than-expected performances in the local stock market.

Samsung’s flagship unit, Samsung Electronics Co., suffered around a 5 percent drop in its stock price last year to close at 1,327,000 won on the last trading day of 2014, as it struggled to compete with low-end smartphone makers and prop up falling profitability amid a slump in smartphone sales. (Yonhap)