Even though Goldman Sachs manages $762 billion USD more than Temasek while employing 31,900 more people its non-financial operating costs are only 34% higher. To put this in perspective, the average operating cost of employing someone at Goldman Sachs is $864,181 SGD. The average operating cost of employing those 400 employees at Temasek: $52,141,276 per employee! It is 60 times more expensive to employ someone at Temasek Holdings than Goldman Sachs and 94 times more expensive than Morgan Stanley.
The enormous discrepancy in operating costs between Temasek and firms like Goldman Sachs matters for two very important reasons. First, as financial firms primary non-financial cost is operational and administrative costs like employee compensation, office space, and overhead, this implies that Temasek is paying its employees well above industry norms.
Second, the excessive non-financial operating costs at Temasek represent an enormous drain on Singaporean public finances. Temasek currently pays $21 billion SGD in non-financial operational costs. If Temasek operational costs per employee were equal to Goldman Sachs, they would only spend $345 million SGD. In other words, if Temasek spent money like Goldman Sachs rather than Temasek, total operational costs would fall by 98.3%!! Full story
Related:
Singaporeans think government is rich and therefore expect more from government: PM Lee Hsien Loong
