Government says prioritises long-term returns over short-term swingsGovernment does not interfere in Temasek’s picks, says ministerGIC’s returns over short periods could be low or negative, says minister<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Returns generated by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC (GIC.UL) and state investor Temasek (TEM.UL) are reasonable and within expectations given their mandates and risk profiles, a minister said on Monday, amid criticism of their performance.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers in the city-state queried the performance of the two globally influential investors, which cumulatively manage hundreds of billions of dollars of assets. A Financial Times report in December called Singapore\u2019s sovereign wealth returns “poor” in comparison to peers.<\/p>\n
Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n “Our focus has always been on long-term performance, rather than on short-term or year-to-year fluctuations,” Jeffrey Siow, a Singapore senior minister of state for finance, told parliament in a live-streamed address.<\/p>\n Temasek reported<\/a> a 10-year total shareholder return of 5% for the year ended March 31, 2025, which lagged the MSCI ACWI’s 9% and Singapore’s Straits Times Index’s (.STI), opens new tab<\/a> 6%, though its 20-year return of 7% is broadly in line with both benchmarks.<\/p>\n Asked why Temasek’s 20\u2011year returns appeared to only match the broader market’s despite its unlisted assets shielding it from public market volatility, Siow said such comparisons are “not always appropriate or meaningful”.<\/p>\n “Temasek is not quite the same as a typical sovereign wealth fund, it is an active bottom\u2011up investor and has a history as a holding company for Singapore portfolio companies,” he said.<\/p>\n GIC’s<\/a> 20-year annualised real return came in at 3.8% for the year to March 31, 2025, marginally below the 3.9% it posted a year earlier, its weakest performance since 2020 when returns hit 2.7%.Temasek wrote down its $275 million investment<\/a> in collapsed crypto exchange FTX and eventually cut pay for senior executives after an internal review, while its portfolio holding, Indonesian aquaculture tech startup eFishery, faces a probe<\/a> into alleged misconduct including fraud.Temasek, which managed a S$434 billion ($338.35 billion) portfolio as of March 2025, will launch a new structure<\/a> from April 1, it said in August.GIC was also in the spotlight<\/a> last year after filing a U.S. lawsuit against Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO (9866.HK), opens new tab<\/a>, alleging NIO and two executives misled investors with false statements and withheld information about its business and prospects.<\/p>\n Siow said the government does not intervene in Temasek\u2019s individual investment decisions, and works with GIC’s board to ensure its mandate is met.<\/p>\n The minister said given investment markets have been uncertain and volatile, “GIC’s returns over shorter periods could be low or even negative, but the government is able to absorb these short-term market fluctuations and risks because it has a strong balance sheet.”<\/p>\n Reporting by Xinghui Kok, Jun Yuan Yong and Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by David Stanway, Thomas Derpinghaus and Muralikumar Anantharaman<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Xinghui leads the Singapore bureau, directing coverage of one of the region\u2019s bellwether economies and Southeast Asia’s main financial hub. This ranges from macroeconomics to monetary policy, property, politics, public health and socioeconomic issues. She also keeps an eye on things that are unique to Singapore, such as how it repealed an anti-gay sex law but goes against global trends by maintaining policies unfavourable to LGBT families. https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/even-singapore-lifts-gay-sex-ban-lgbt-families-feel-little-has-changed-2022-11-29\/ <\/p>\n Xinghui previously covered Asia for the South China Morning Post and has been in journalism for a decade. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government says prioritises long-term returns over short-term swingsGovernment does not interfere in Temasek’s picks, says ministerGIC’s returns over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1202,3995,184327,190753,14806,183329,28,190754,184713,182530,23592,183070,183348,184386,184394,184398,183352,183346,183353,184390,183350,184392,183360,183345,184329,186752,183351,183355,184391,184325,41240,101,190755,184328,7611,74353,20393,182531,110567,182543,184375,184378,184379,190762,9746,137922,184366,184380,183077,182546,183078,190750,194934,190746,184326,175354,194932,190752,194933,182550],"class_list":{"0":"post-404198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-asean","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-asxpac","11":"tag-aut","12":"tag-auto","13":"tag-bisv","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-carm","16":"tag-clj","17":"tag-cmpny","18":"tag-cn","19":"tag-cycs","20":"tag-destabn","21":"tag-destabx","22":"tag-destbnx","23":"tag-destd","24":"tag-destdnp","25":"tag-deste","26":"tag-destfun","27":"tag-destm","28":"tag-destpsc","29":"tag-destptd","30":"tag-destrbn","31":"tag-destrnp","32":"tag-destseabs","33":"tag-destsi","34":"tag-destu","35":"tag-destucdptest","36":"tag-destz","37":"tag-easia","38":"tag-eco","39":"tag-economy","40":"tag-eleav","41":"tag-emrg","42":"tag-fin","43":"tag-fins","44":"tag-fund","45":"tag-gen","46":"tag-hk","47":"tag-insr","48":"tag-invbis","49":"tag-invm","50":"tag-invm1","51":"tag-invman","52":"tag-law","53":"tag-mce","54":"tag-mtpix","55":"tag-plcy","56":"tag-pol","57":"tag-privt","58":"tag-publ","59":"tag-ratielectrification-zero-emmision","60":"tag-ratiregulatory-policy","61":"tag-ratisustainable-ev-supply-chain","62":"tag-seasia","63":"tag-sg","64":"tag-sov","65":"tag-topicrati-supply-chain-manufacturing","66":"tag-topicworld-singapore","67":"tag-topnws"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}