Temasek Holdings assets jump to record level

Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state-owned investment company, said assets rose to a record $169 million last fiscal year as surging stock markets drove an almost sixfold increase in returns.

The value of Temasek’s holdings increased by 8.6 percent in the year to March 31 from S$198 billion, the investment company said in its annual report yesterday. Total shareholder return, which includes dividends, widened to 8.9 percent from 1.5 percent in the previous year.

Temasek, led by Chief Executive Officer Ho Ching, benefited from a recovery in stocks around the world with 73 percent of its holdings in publicly traded assets. The MSCI World Index gained 9.3 percent in the year to March 31, while Singapore’s Straits Times Index climbed 9.9 percent.

“We are almost entirely invested in equities,” Ho said in a statement yesterday. “This means a lot more year-to-year volatility, as we have seen over the last 10 years. We are prepared to ride through the large mark to market volatility on our portfolio value, because a portfolio of mostly equities also means we expect higher returns over the long term.”

The firm’s total shareholder return averaged 16 percent since its inception in 1974.

Financial services remained the biggest industry for Temasek’s holdings, accounting for 31 percent of its assets, unchanged from a year earlier, it said. Stakes in China Construction Bank, Standard Chartered and DBS Group Holdings are Temasek’s biggest assets by value after the holding in SingTel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bloomberg