Breaking News: THE registers of electors here are due for an update, and the Prime Minister has directed that the revision be done by April 30. (Straits Times)
From Bloomberg:
Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) – Government of Singapore Investment Corp., one of two sovereign wealth funds owned by the island, lost as much as S$50 billion ($33 billion) in 2008, the Wall Street Journal said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The fund doesn’t plan to get rid of its investments including in Citigroup Inc.and UBS AG even as asset values plummet, the newspaper said. GIC expects the two banks to provide substantial long-term returns, according to the report.
Sovereign wealth funds in Asia and the Middle East have pumped money into global financial institutions to help replenish capital eroded by writedowns and losses that have topped $1 trillion globally. GIC, overseeing more than $100 billion of reserves, has invested about $18 billion in UBS and Citigroup since December 2007.
GIC’s losses are similar to those at Temasek Holdings Pte, the city-state’s other sovereign wealth fund, according to the Journal. “GIC does not comment on speculative reports,” Singapore-based spokeswoman Jennifer Lewis said today by phone.
Full report on Bloomberg.
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If true, that would not be so bad, since USD33bn is much smaller than the ’41%’ blurted out in Parliament.
I wonder how much food one can buy with that money for everyone?
This appears to be an intentional leak. A loss of US$33B at the end of 2008 is inconsistent with the 41% purported thrown up in parliament on 10 Feb 2009. At least one set of numbers must be wrong.
mr lky bulit singapore up from nothing to 1st world.
he is still gic chairman.
i think no matter how even if he die he will not wish to see singapore die.
but after if he really die already will singapore still be safe?
maybe he already plan for singapore 50 years after he die?
or will there be another person better or worse than lky in the future?
we should not be so worried.
Our leaders are excellent.
Remember when boom time, investment good good resulting,
we should not forget to credit them for their contributions.
Agree with #3 Yogi Bear on February 17th, 2009 11.09 pm. Think it is an intentional leak to cover-up the earlier worse ratio given of 41%.
The 41% GIC losses blurted at parliament plus the $58billion lost, would amount to a large weakening of Singapore’s reserves. Will there be a repeat of the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis starting with Singapore this time round?
will an ordinary singaporean benefit from or lose from, the gain or lost of GIC?
do anyone know?
or the ones that really benefit or lost are only rich people?
I find the quote “mr lky bulit singapore up from nothing to 1st world” myopic.
It should be “mr lky & HIS TEAM bulit singapore up from nothing to 1st world”
We cannot undermine those dedicated pioneer ministers who contributed significantly to make SGP into 1st work cos this cannot be achieved by 1 person.
Unfortunately, the history text book says little about the unsung heros but focing on 1 person.
The old guards retires gracefully. Except one who brought in his next generation.
What I would like to see, is the investment potfolio of GIC and Temasek and the year on year gains and loses. When did we start buying into US FIs. What triggered this trend. Why did we end up buying melons like ABC. Where was the due deligence. So many question but the answer is trust us and its long term. ABC is not going come back alive, perhaps Thaksin might. What are the unrecoverable loses? Don’t we have the right to know how much the top people were paid in bonuses? That has never been revealed? So much for transparency and accountability. Lets not forget its the people’s reserve and not a family estate.
makes you wonder what kind of people helming this country. i think their leadership typifies the high stake rollers( chinese gamblers) than the wise and frugal gandhi type of leadership.
I think election is coming – stay tuned.
Take a good look at the Board of Directors! Do you honestly think that it is capable of independent and contrarian thinking? Or is just groupthink? Or one man’s word and the rest follows? A flock of geese or a herd of bulls? or sheep?
Everyone has made a contribution, no matter how small it was in the nation building process. Looking at Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Finland, Norway and Denmark we could have perhaps achieved better if we had democratic process which allowed for an strong opposition forcing more transparency and accountabilty. With just a few opposition MPs and the new media, we have seen how the government is being held accountable and that has exposed their shortcomings which would otherwise have never been revealed.
I always believed that pass successes are not quarantees for future success and definitely not indicators of incorruptability .
3) Yogi Bear
quite true, this may be leak to distract us from the 41% blurt out…especially when news of that is out on the internet and increasing outcry are appearing.if the 41% was wrong, why was it not clarify on the spot or publish at that time? that 41% have to come from somewhere right?
i may be criticize for this, but since TH has lost such a huge percentage, i think GIC may also be facing higher lost then this
I think Gilbert is right. This is the best time to use the economic downturn as the bogeyman to scare the hell out of people to vote for them. I can even come out with slogans “We got you out of two crisis, The Asian and SARS and we will do so this time too, trust us and give us your mandate”
“I always believed that pass successes are not quarantees for future success”
true…but i will like to expand it further, pass success can set the stage for failure and that is the more likely case for this country
You forgot about other things…
First they set the CPF ordinary and special limit to 20K each.
That would stop you from withdrawing it and storing it somewhere to pay for your hdb loan before you buy.
Next, they introduce the need to put in 5% cash for resale flat purchase.
For an ordinary flat of 300k, 10% is 30K, 5% is 15K. So, basically, you end up putting in more than 10% and borrow less from HDB.
So, they look as if they are helping you but in fact, with their limits here and there, you end up paying more.
Besides, by changing these limits, they disallow you from putting aside a sum of monies which will buffer you when you are retrench or something happen… they assume you work and work every working day in your life, which is not a reasonable assumption given the frequency of economic downturn.
Their specialization is to look good by providing funds targeted at this or that category of people, using funds that were targeted at a larger public. But because of their various restrictions, the number of people who qualifies under the new scheme is very small. So, effective usage of the funds are small. in other words, fewer people benefit. Then what happens to the remaining public funds that were not used? Invested by GIC and Temasek or TC and evidently lost by these people. It would have been a great idea if they are Warren Buffett but they are not.
Remember during the last election, PAP was so scared that they go around reassuring people that there is enough monies for health care cost provision. Then they win and they introduced rules which increases your medisave contributions and your medisave limit. That effectively reduces your ordinary sum contributions and reduce your ability to pay for your mortage using CPF and increases the cash you have to pay into the system. HDB prices according to the minister of state is that it will be getting more expensive, so the earlier deduction is true. With the medisave limits and contribution increases, you won’t be in a position of not being able to pay for your medical fees since it is already there for them to deduct.
That’s what they mean by ” you don’t need to worry you don’t have enough for medical bills” … most people would have interpreted them to mean they would pay more into the bills but instead, they get you to pay.
Very sly right.
Best of all, they give you lower interest rate. So, you got to save yourself harder.
True to their identity: pay and pay!
I forgot to add to the above analysis that
I, and probably, many of you have not seen any visible effort to improve the efficiency of the health care system and cost control measures.
So, whatever they make us save will still not be enough because the cost grows faster (much faster) than the savings.
Also, We are a first world country with one of the highest saving rates in the world and we have one of the longest work week and longest continuous work period (in principle up to 65, even before that, it was 62) but we also rank the lowest in retirement income.
If we overspend on housing, our flats should be more expensive than those in hong kong but that is not the case.
And Hong Kongers got more monies than us in retirement.
Take a guess where is the real leakage.
This article only provide part of the answers.
I think the whole system is tuned to squeeze Singaporeans to finance overseas (supposedly) expansion plans and we all know most of time, the plans turn out to be failures.
We should really learn to treat ourselves nicer by voting the opposition.
will there be a better or worse lky to lead a team of better or worse minsters for singapore?
what will happen to singapore after lky and his old guard team all die?
will singapore also die?
who can predict?
此时不大选购，要待何时？等老头死了不成？I will remember your 100 dollar GST rebate PAP and I have decided to donate it to the needy instead. For your info PAP, my wife allowances, baby milk powders, diapers etc has already reach 10 times your 100 dollars rebate! I don’t own a house and just because my parent stay in a condo, I suddenily became a rich man. You must be joking.
I forgot to add one more thing to the above:
if you marry early, then your CPF is wipe out to pay the downpayment.
Meaning you would not be able to take much advantage of the so called extra 1% interest coz your payment every month to the HDB will possibly be so much that you don’t have much left to earn that extra interest.
Even if you have… it is so small, you probably don’t make much.
This is another example of them promising a lot but in realty, providing little.
their 1% in realty is only .5% at most, the usual way we would understand things.
” The fund doesn’t plan to get rid of its investments including in Citigroup Inc.and UBS AG even as asset values plummet, the newspaper said. GIC expects the two banks to provide substantial long-term returns, according to the report. ”
If they exit now, they are screwed.
If they choose to exit later, they still got a minute chance of making the money back.
OF course, that is providing Obama didn’t let citigroup fail.
Honestly, with Citigroup breaking up, I wonder how they can make back the monies.
One thing is for sure… LKY would have probably been dead for some time, before we see the light of the tunnel to this investment.
I believe TOC should start another permanent list and add items when needed – much like the other one on Cost increases in Singapore.
For a start –
1) Singapore women and aged to work as Chamber maids in Singapore
2) LOsses in GIC and Temasek – was the President Key involved, or the other old man took it?
3) Send middle class old folks to JB
The world stock market peak in October 2007. The losses by Temasek and GIC
since then could be more than 50%!!!!!!!!! The two Boards should be sack.
Forty years of earnings wipe off in 12 months!!!!!!!!!! How long can these
investments are for long term………..till the end of the world?????????
There are paper losses and there are the real losses. I wonder is 31B the real loss and 41% the paper loss.
if the loss is only $31b, they would have announced it long ago. in percentage term it could be only 10%. this will be a super feat among fund managers.
i will recommend that GIC take out $1b to reward all the staff if the loss is less than Temasek. but got to take note of the time frame for computing the losses. 8 mths, 1 year, 3 year will all show different numbers.
The ST link no longer works…
Crap management team, more like a political groups that favor their interest rather than that of the public. Wonder how safe our nation reservers is at their hand, with even president as their puppet, only to be there to say yes to PAP request. No surprise if one day we found our all the reserve have become depleted and transferred our from singapore to other country, and subsequently these PAP elites disappear from the radar screen. Crap, really crap political leaders and system we have here.
hope the eletion comes earlier as someone predicted in toc. i’ll definitely vote against these crap PAP candidate if happen that my area is not overun by the GRC system
9) Commando on February 18th, 2009 12.07 am
I find the quote “mr lky bulit singapore up from nothing to 1st world” myopic.
It should be “mr lky & HIS TEAM bulit singapore up from nothing to 1st world”
===================================
though agree in principal, i beg to differ a bit.
We the People , dead ones and alive ones, helped built this nation.
if there is a GE soon, hope we can all make the right choice. i wonder if we can go about helping the alternatives to educate the public?
34) SZ on February 18th, 2009 11.34 am
based on the current state of affairs,
i believe it would not be in time to reach critical mass .
bad habbits die hard.
unique is the poreanos.
34) SZ on February 18th, 2009 11.34 am
but need to reach critical mass not easy.
oops, i think it is US$31b or S$50b. i think the amount is still too low to be real.
redbean (#29),
There are some discrepancies in the size of GIC funds:
1. nationmultimedia claimed that GIC has about S$550B worth of reserves at the beginning of 2008
2. GIC consistently claimed its reserves is about US$100B.
3. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute lists GIC’s asset under management as US$330B.
Please lah….
the gov always discount themselves much of the loss. If you ask me how much the loss is, I will say 10 times as much. In the course of history, the gov has the tendency to mark down their loss while exaggerate their claim of loss when giving money to citizen. Last time, GST surplus excess including property charge > 10 times. Now, isn’t it generous to say that they lost at least US$330 billions (10 x 33billions).
Since when we have daring Whistleblower in GIC ? How come never show the face if they indeed telling the truth since if they are indeed whistleblower, they will be charged under Singapore law anyway, or the two persons are the father and son we know ?
“GIC consistently claimed its reserves is about US$100B.”
Please lah…
Some old man even tell us that the government is managing of trillion dollars of economy which means that they must be handling close to a trillion state-owned assets+reserve, and that’s why they increase the coffer’s pay to millions. And now, and when loss is too much embarass to announce, they say it is actually US$100B. Who are the clowns trying to kid ?
maths example of percentage:
20% of X = Y
Y will be more if X is more.
percentage is relative.
sorry. just a reminder. no flame me.
This is a smart move to deflect critism:
1. Not official annoucement – hence secrecy of GIC is still a policy.
2. Use brand name like Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal – to lend credibility
3. Smoking some figures – No one can verify
4. Stall public reaction or speculation – GIC is not as bad as Temasek Holding
Bottom line to me: Still no transparency and credibility. I fear the reality is much much more dire than what is leaked.
BTW, I know those emplyed by stat boards need to give undertaking to observe the Official Secret Act (OSA) or whatever. How come 2 guys are willing to risk their careers of highly paid jobs? Something fishy here!!! Is this an officially sanctioned leaking of info?
Yes, it will not reach critical mass so soon, but we need to try to get as many changeover vote as possible to send a message across that fate is coming after them and they can’t live in denial. if they want to keep their million dollar job, they have better do something about it. every change in vote will mean something and hopefully, it will make them realise that they grip on power isn’t as strong as they want it to be.
like what we have said about the “whistleblower” could be someone that leak info to minimize the repercussion or distract us from the true amount lost.
38) smallvice585, i think i will trust option 1 and 3 rather then 2,since 2 is murky. and 1+3 kinds of add up.
” How come 2 guys are willing to risk their careers of highly paid jobs? ”
They are not even risking, they are paid handsomely to leak such dubious information to mislead the reader.
If they are whistleblower, they should have blown long ago, don’t have to wait till now, not unless to wayang about the loss. GIC is handled by some oldman, and those whistleblower tell us that it can be lesser than Temasek ?
Who will to believe that GIC lead by the father and son which handle even bigger sum of money than Temasek under wife suffer less loss than Temasek ?
Are we insane to believe that ?
aiyoyo
there goes commoners retirement savings??? (to be withdraw at LATER age?)
aiyoyo
I think Gilbert is right. This is the best time to use the economic downturn as the bogeyman to scare the hell out of people to vote for them. I can even come out with slogans “We got you out of two crisis, The Asian and SARS and we will do so this time too, trust us and give us your mandate” – is coming (#16)
Is that why the Supply Act (or Government Budget Information) for 1996, 1997 and 2003 are missing from the Singapore Statute Online? If a political party uses scaremongering tactics at election, can it be considered as a terrorist organisation? After all, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair once said “the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise”. Terrorising the electorate to vote would be an act of terrorism.
600K = Peanut.
33B = Kacang Puteh store only.
Farmer brand best. Thumbs up!
This is an update on the infamous Hitler video: Hitler Slams Temasek and Ho Ching.
Let asume GIC invest 10B in Citicorp at 20 USD pershare.
Share price is 3 USD not, asume price goes up 10% ayear.
It would take 20 years to reach 20 USD again.
3.00, 3.30, 3.63… and so on.
I may be pessimitics but, Citicorp is no where near what is was at 2006, price is still heading south!
Besides, how much cash does GIC has to make new investment? Make back lost profit within 5 years is unlikely. Would GIC scholar willing to take a 30% pay cut?
Vey impress board of directors, let’s see who is the scape goat for this entire mess. Maybe directors 1 and 2 can consider implementing a Sepuku Policy.