Search the Community

http://www.tremeritus.com/2014/03/09/josephine-teo-gic-temasek-wont-take-more-risks/ Josephine Teo: GIC, Temasek won’t take more risks March 9th, 2014 | Author: Editorial Josephine Teo In Parliament on Friday (7 Mar), Senior Minister of State for Finance Josephine Teo said that any rise in Singapore’s spending needs over time should not drive GIC and Temasek to take on more risks. The solution lies in the government’s budgetary measures, rather than a change in these entities’ investment strategies, she told the House. Under the current Net Investment Returns (NIR) framework, the government can tap up to 50% of the long-term expected real return from the net assets managed by GIC and the MAS for its budgetary spending, GIC and Temasek “must continue to invest with the aim of achieving good, risk-adjusted returns over the long term”, which they have achieved so far, she said. Ms Teo was responding to Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Inderjit Singh, who was concerned that the government may be spending too much from its investment returns. Even so, some of GIC and Temasek’s investment losses in recent years appear to suggest that both entities may have been taking a lot more risk than Ms Teo is willing to admit. GIC In late 2007, GIC invested a massive 11 billion Swiss francs (then S$14 billion) – GIC’s largest investment ever – for a major stake in UBS [Link]. According to Reuters, GIC’s investment in UBS was later converted to UBS shares at 47.7 Swiss francs, making GIC the largest shareholder of UBS at 6.6% of equity [Link]. Based on Friday’s (7 Mar) closing price for UBS shares of 18.63 Swiss francs, GIC has lost some 61% or S$8.5 billion. UBS share price in Swiss francs (CHF): In its defence, GIC says on its website [Link]: For UBS, as we said in late 2008, our timing could have been better and the investment is still finding its footing. GIC’s view of UBS’ fundamental strength as a well-capitalised bank with a strong private wealth management franchise remains unchanged. GIC manages risk by investing in a well-diversified portfolio, with a balanced distribution of asset classes and their underlying business sectors and geographies. This, too, is why GIC’s performance has to be measured on the basis of its overall portfolio rather than by how much it makes or loses on individual investments. In 2006, at the height of the US real estate bubble, GIC made a US$675 million investment – comprising US$100 million in equity and US$575 million in loans – in the Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village complex in Manhatten, New York. The management of the complex, Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, defaulted on their loan in 2010. GIC then booked a loss on the US$675 million investment, as reported by Reuters [Link]. Reuters said, “GIC did not disclose its exposure or say how much it wrote off, although court documents indicate the Singapore fund held $100 million of equity and $575 million in mezzanine debt issued by the owner of the Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village complex in Manhatten.” Temasek Holdings What about Temasek? Let us see how Temasek made some of its investments. In May 2007, Temasek bought 55 million shares of ABC Learning at A$7.30 a share for a 12% stake. The investment cost Temasek A$402 million. As the share price fell in early 2008, it bought more shares and increased its stake to 14.7%, making it the second largest shareholder in ABC Learning [Link]. Then a series of events happened: An unexpected drop of 42 per cent in profit in the second half of 2007 to $37.1 million and its inability to service its $1.8 billion debt triggered a decline in the company’s share price. Several directors of the company were forced to dump millions of shares after receiving margin calls in February 2008 [Link]. In August 2008, shares of ABC Learning were halted from trade when the company failed to release its latest earnings [Link]. In November 2008, the company went into receivership. An estimated A$850 million was owed to its banks. Shareholders would not receive anything, the Sydney Morning Herald reported [Link]. By April 2009, it was announced that some of the ABC Learning centres were sold to charity, Mission Australia, for $1 each [Link]. Mission Australia spokesman Paul Andrews told the Australian media, “We got a really fantastic deal.” In less than 1.5 years from the day Temasek invested in ABC Learning, it was game-over for Temasek. In May 2009, Financial Times (FT) reported [Link] that Temasek had pulled out of its investment in Bank of America, selling its 3.8 per cent stake in the US group. Temasek is estimated to have lost at least US$2 billion on an investment foray that began with it taking a stake in Merrill Lynch in December 2007 for US$5 billion. The Merrill Lynch shares were later converted to Bank of America shares after Merrill Lynch merged with Bank of America. Temasek did not disclose when it disposed of the Bank of America stake or at what price, FT said. Are GIC and Temasek already taking a lot more risk than Josephine Teo has assured the House? What do you think?

Not the first time similar news (ideas or patent been used by agency) has surfaced on the web. The last was a case with Mindef, for a first-aid vehicle, if my memory don't fails me. About the parking app, without looking at the photo, PP Coupon may have a different meaning to some, especially when Josephine Teo comes into the picture. 😁 Source: https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2023/02/20/nanyang-polytechnic-students-created-parking-app-in-2013-but-were-allegedly-told-by-authorities-that-the-idea-was-not-feasible/ In a recent development, it has been revealed via a tip-off from a member of the public that a team of students from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) were the first to come up with a parking app in Singapore back in 2013, way before students from Temasek Polytechnic claimed the title in 2016, as reported in a 2019 TOC report. The team of third-year students from NYP utilized data provided by government agencies to create the parking app, called “PP-Coupon”. The app aimed to replace traditional paper-based coupons, which were seen as a hassle for users and wasteful in terms of paper usage. Lim Sheng Han, a team member of the NYP project, said to the media in 2013, “Purchasing a coupon and calculating the likely time of parking has always been a hassle. Furthermore, we use a lot of paper when tearing up the coupons. We hope that this app can help to save such wastage.” With their parking app, the team won second place in the student categories at the inaugural PlugFest International Programming Competition in February 2013 and received praise from Mrs Josephine Teo, who was then Minister of State for the Ministry of Transport. Mrs Teo said during the awards presentation, “We don’t want to have to worry about the time limit of our parking coupons during our visits to our families and be unable to enjoy the time with them.” In the same month, the team also won second place at Isobar Create, the first Near Field Communication (NFC)-themed 32-hour hackathon. Similar to the current app “Parking.sg” that Singapore uses, the app by the NYP students also uses Global-Positioning-System for positioning. The NFC sticker on the car is meant to identify the parked vehicle in the system, while the current app just allows the user to type in the vehicle number — a difference that could be tweaked easily. The team shared that they pitched the app to the Urban Development Board (URA) and Housing Development Board (HDB) and was later visited by URA at the polytechnic in February 2013. However, after a presentation to the visiting officials, they were informed that the idea would no longer be valid as Singapore was set to roll out a new ERP system that would eliminate coupon payments for parking. The NYP team did not continue with the project, as it required the support of authorities to launch and kick-off. A few years later, in his National Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the launch of a new mobile app that would change how people pay for parking in Singapore. The app was developed by a team at GovTech, and it allowed users to pay for parking via their mobile phones, eliminating the need for physical coupons. The app was created with the support of the Ministry of National Development (MND), URA, and HDB – the same agencies that had earlier told the NYP students that their project was not feasible. When TOC managed to contact one of the team members, he said, “Initially, in 2013, when they told us abt ERP 2.0, we accepted the fact as since there is a new system coming up soon to replace and change the existing system. “But when I saw the news abt Parking.SG – I was very indignant as I started to question why didn’t URA tell them about the ERP 2.0.?” “Where is ERP 2.0 that was informed by URA that is abt to phase in? And why is the app so similar to ours?” questioned the team member. TOC has written to MND for its comments and will include them when they respond.

lifted from a website Coffeeshop Chit Chat - Open letter to MP Josephine Teo From: kojakbt89 Apr-4 10:41 pm Dear Madam, I saw you on TV and how you spoke about Singapore having an unemployment rate of 2%, I do not know how this statistic or measurement is done, but maybe you can provide the actual measurements used ? The reason is simple, there are many Singaporeans who are jobless (30+) and up, who find that their jobs have been REPLACED by the influx of cheap labor, and maybe you could actually provide the breakdown of the number of working foreigners we have in Singapore, and we can make the assumption that with every foreigner, one Singaporean is displaced or is jobless, based on the total population count of actual SINGAPOREANS (Singaporeans does not include PR mind you) It also seems that your foreign worker argument is flawed and incorrect as you stood all high and mighty to speak. This is because SM Goh made a recent comment about Quote