NextFin News - The Swiss National Bank (SNB) reduced its exposure to ServiceNow, Inc. by 29,500 shares during the third quarter of 2025, according to a regulatory filing released on March 9, 2026. This divestment brought the central bank’s total holdings in the enterprise software giant to 597,100 shares, representing a roughly 4.7% reduction in its position over the three-month period ending September 30, 2025. At the time of the filing, the remaining stake was valued at approximately $549.5 million, maintaining ServiceNow’s status as a top-50 holding in the SNB’s massive $172 billion U.S. equity portfolio.
The timing of the sale coincided with a period of significant valuation expansion for ServiceNow. During the third quarter of 2025, the company reported robust financial results, including a 22.5% year-over-year increase in subscription revenues, driven largely by the rapid adoption of its "Pro Plus" artificial intelligence offerings. As the stock price climbed toward record highs, the SNB appears to have engaged in a disciplined rebalancing act rather than a fundamental retreat from the cloud sector. This pattern of incremental selling is consistent with the bank’s historical approach to managing high-flying technology stocks that begin to carry outsized weight in its index-tracking strategy.
While the SNB was trimming its sails, other institutional players were moving in the opposite direction. NZS Capital LLC, for instance, aggressively boosted its stake in ServiceNow by over 445% during the same quarter, signaling a sharp divergence in sentiment between passive-leaning sovereign wealth managers and active growth investors. The contrast highlights a broader market debate: whether ServiceNow’s current valuation fully accounts for the long-term monetization of generative AI, or if the "AI premium" has reached a temporary ceiling that justifies profit-taking by conservative institutions like the SNB.
The central bank’s broader portfolio dynamics provide essential context for this specific trade. In its Q3 2025 comparison, the SNB showed a clear preference for diversifying away from traditional software stalwarts in favor of hardware-centric AI plays. While it reduced its ServiceNow position by 20% compared to 2021 levels, it simultaneously oversaw a staggering 2,855% increase in its Nvidia Corporation holdings over the same period. This suggests a strategic pivot within the technology sleeve of its portfolio, prioritizing the "shovels" of the AI gold rush—semiconductors—over the "gold miners" of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) layer.
ServiceNow remains a formidable force in the enterprise landscape, but the SNB’s decision to lighten its load reflects a growing sensitivity to the macroeconomic environment. With U.S. President Trump’s administration emphasizing trade policies that could impact global corporate spending, large-cap software firms with significant international exposure face a more complex operating environment. For the SNB, which manages the Swiss franc’s stability through these international investments, the 29,500-share sale serves as a tactical hedge against potential volatility in the high-multiple software sector. The bank continues to hold a half-billion-dollar bet on the company, but its recent actions suggest that even the most reliable growth stories are subject to the gravity of portfolio risk management.
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