When electricity bills start to jump faster than usual, Temasek (the govt) can claim that its a private matter. Therefore, Singaporeans will be sacrificed again to pay up the advance profit taken by Temasek.

Another case of profiting at the expense of citizens.

Long-term investment? Lets reason this.

GIC invest $10 billion in failing banks. LKY said we’re prepared to wait for 5, 20-30 years for them to bear reasonable fruit. The investments have lost easily more than 30% of its value since then.

1. We’ll need a miracle for those banks to recover their losses over 5 years. Therefore, the probability of the invested capital regaining its principal value (not factoring profit) are as good as zero.

2. LKY realised that he’s fooling himself. Therefore, he said prepared to wait 20-30 years. Why?
After this sub-prime episode, banks will not be able to grow as before because many new regulations will be in place to prevent a recurrence of this debt bubble created by unscrupulous bankers and their cronies. Growth and profits will be more in line with economic activities rather than through speculation. It will be many years before these banks can even recover to the value of GIC’s porportionate investment in them. To realise the desired profit will take longer and when factoring in opportunity cost, could make 30 years even untenable.

These investments were totally unjustifiable and highly controversial. Therefore, accountability with transparency is not an option. it should be mandatory.

“one of GIC’s values n strategy is to invest in a long-term orientation.”

Sounds so chic with all the right words to impress (confuse) those who are ignorant about the wider & complex financial world.

In short, they are betting on your behalf. Good if they win – with a little bit being distributed back to you here and there in the form of ang bao and the bulk going to themselves for good performance.

That is how it works in the corporate world and they are applying it to the last letter. The top get more and the bottom get the crumb.

Well, if they lose, the costs will be socialised either directly / indirectly – if you know what I mean. Sometimes, knowing this possibility just makes you sick.

Look at US, I think the country with the best & most economics & financial wizards – with their own inherent problems – creating all sorts of financial intruments which do not reflect the real value of actual brick and mortar work but mostly virtual / paper / speculative value.

“tt is why the 2-year disclosure is not feasible.”

Aiyoh. How about revealing all details for performance before 2003. Historical data of more than 5 years should be ok right. I do not think they are now providing it right ? Now internet age where business or change or whatever cycle is getting shorter and shorter, sometimes anything more than 1 year is already considered history.

Anyone cares to debunk my assumption.

“SINGAPORE (Reuters) – In the largest overseas purchase by a Chinese power firm, Huaneng Group has agreed to pay S$4.2 billion ($3.04 billion) to buy Tuas Power from Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL], the latter said on Friday.

Tuas generates about a quarter of Singapore’s electricity and is the first of three generating companies which the city-state hopes to sell by mid-2009.

“This transaction represents a major step for China Huaneng in its goal to diversify its assets across geographies and technologies,” Huang Long, vice president of China’s largest independent electricity provider, said in a statement.

“The Singaporeans have got themselves a good price,” said Simon Powell, head of power research at CLSA in Hong Kong.

“The Chinese have got the money, the desire and the capability to go outside their home market,” he said. “There’s an overarching trend of Chinese power companies expanding outside China.”

Huaneng’s will pay about 24 times the S$177 million net profit Tuas reported for the 12 months to March 2007.

The sale follows a three-month bidding process that saw Huaneng beat firms including India’s GMR Infrastructure (GMRI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Bahrain’s Arcapita.

Others including Li Ka-shing’s Hongkong Electric (0006.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) and Malaysia’s Tanjong (TJPL.KL: Quote, Profile, Research) withdrew from the bidding”

No wonder these clowns can even sell Singapore for greed of money. Moral authority ? Which taste better to them ? MOral or billion dollar ?

Thasin can be overthrown because of selling a pathetic telecom national asset then our own coffers will be multitude of time been overthrow because selling national asset has been their practice in the excuse of commerical interest.

Singapore be damn again because the coffers might have promised the foreign company of price hike to make the sale profitable in the first place. After all, will a foreigner buy it if it does not generate potential profit ? Did the government give the foreigner the right to raise the electricity bill ? What right has the government to do that if they are Singapore Incorporated not acting as government ?

Freak government, please stop blundering and selling national asset to foreigner without the accountability and responsibility to people of Singaporean. The country don’t belong to you, it’s belong to the republic.

Please wake up LULU! Stop being ignorant.

What strategy is that? UBS, Citibank, PT Indosat, Shin Corp and many more. You call that values and strategy and long term?? I firmly believe that people’s hard earned money kept in GIC should be disclosed annually. With good accountablilty improves the investment responsbilities of the GIC ‘s executives. When no singaporeans can ask critical questions about GIC investments will they care to be cautious. Long term my foot!

Who

In Singapore, LKY is law and law is LKY. The law is been manipulated by LKY to his advantage and judges been bought over as not to jeopardised their jobs.

I am no investor or a financial analyst. However, I think is common knowledge to any working professional that in a competitive world investing arena, no sane mind will want to disclose its investing strategies. Why only target SWF investment? How about those publicly listed companies around the world? Are we able to obtain a publicly available documentation of every company’s investment strategy and its composition? (I could be wrong)

Personally, I felt that more transparencies on how Singapore SWF profit returns are put in good use is keyed to allow the public to have a better understanding of the health of our state. The suggestion of a 2-year delayed disclosure is only achievable for mid-term investments. However, if any SWF investments that are longer that this period, it is not a very wise decision if adopted.