Asia Sentinel
18 Aug 2008
The bull market tide goes out, leaving the lion city’s sovereign wealth firm gasping on the shore.
Nearly five months after its March 31 year-end, Singaporeans should be eagerly looking forward to the publication of the report of the guardian of so much of the national wealth, Temasek Holdings. The sovereign wealth fund run by Ho Ching, wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is not the biggest repository of money collected by the state on behalf of the people, but it is at least semi-transparent compared with its big brother the Government Investment Corp.
The lengthy wait for results could possibly be connected to issues of how to treat a series of rather spectacular disasters that Temasek faced last year, and that are continuing into the current year.
Even in 2006-07, when world markets were booming in unison, Temasek had to report a 29 percent profit fall. Neither chairman S. Dhanabalan nor Ho Ching were on hand at the press conference when these dismal results were delivered. So who will deliver any bad news for the latest year?
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