Re: You just can't become George Soros or Warren Buffett overnight.
- From: Tang Liang Hong <truth@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:06:18 +0800
She takes risk... becos it is win-win for her!
If it turns out well, she get praises and big feather in her cap;
if not, her hubby protects her like Micropolis, Shincorpse, wat have
you not!
Our reward system is one-way street lacking in punishment element! In
Japan the mistakes made are enuf for many hari kiri for CEO's n
Chairmen of the businesses!
On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:52:23 +0200, "AleXX" <js@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Temasek's chief, Ho Ching, likes to take risks
By Sara Webb
Reuters
Friday, July 27, 2007
SINGAPORE: One of the colleagues of Ho Ching once said it was her
willingness to take risks, not her family ties, that won the wife of the
prime minister her top job at Temasek Holdings with a mandate to shake up
Singapore's state investor.
That penchant for risk-taking came to the fore this week with Temasek's
unexpected ¡ê2.1 billion, or $4.34 billion, investment in Barclays, the U.K.
bank that is locked in an increasingly costly bidding war for ABN AMRO in
what would be the world's biggest bank takeover.
The investment is one of many big deals engineered by Ho, who keeps a low
profile despite her prominence in financial circles and as a member by
marriage of the first family of Singapore.
Since taking the helm at Temasek in 2002, Ho has stepped up the
diversification of the fund beyond its small home market. Her goal: a
portfolio split with about a third invested in Singapore, a third elsewhere
in Asia and the rest in developed economies.
But while Temasek is regarded as the Asian standard-bearer among
increasingly prominent sovereign funds, its hefty $86 billion size and
government links have helped provoke opposition to investments in nearby
Thailand and Indonesia.
The Temasek-led $3.8 billion investment last year in the Thai telecom firm
Shin, which was owned by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has lost
about one third of its stock market value. Shin's sale helped to trigger a
prolonged political crisis in Bangkok.
Temasek's investment in Indonesia's PT Indosat has also come under attack,
in part because Temasek-linked companies are big investors in the country's
telecom sector. Temasek says it is not involved in any anti-competitive
business practices.
"Temasek's declared strategy of aiming for one third of its assets in OECD
countries assumes even more salience now, given the sensitivities
experienced in recent years in Thailand and Indonesia," said Garry Rodan,
director of Murdoch University's Asia Research Center in Perth, Australia.
The Barclays investment "is in line with Temasek's desire for balance
between markets with differing degrees of risk," he said.
When Ho, an engineer by training, joined Temasek, she quickly brought in a
host of deal-makers to scour Asia for targets and began to publish an annual
review of the firm's performance.
Among the results: some $5 billion invested in Chinese state banks has paid
off handsomely so far, with shares in China Construction Bank up
two-and-a-half times since its IPO, and Bank of China up 40 percent.
In overall performance, Temasek has kept pace with benchmarks such as the
Straits Times Index and MSCI indices.
The most recent available figures, for the year ending March 31, 2006, show
Temasek's one-year total shareholder return by market value was 24 percent,
the same as for the STI and 2 percentage points higher than a weighted MSCI
index for Singapore, the World and Asia-Pacific except Japan.
Over five years, Temasek's shareholder return averaged 10 percent, matching
the MSCI index but below the STI's 13 percent.
From 2003 to 2005, Temasek paid an average annual dividend of 1.3 billionSingapore dollars, or $858 million, to its shareholder, the Finance
Ministry.
Some in the financial community warn that Temasek's strategy of buying big
chunks of companies exposes it to potentially deep losses if markets turn.
"Temasek's strategy is similar to that of a big private equity investor and
could well end up producing lower returns than the big index-tracking
funds," said a former adviser to the firm. "You just can't become George
Soros or Warren Buffett overnight."
Ho tends to avoid the media and has made few comments on Shin. When she
addressed a Morgan Stanley conference in November 2006, with the Shin deal
in the limelight, the bank told the media not to ask questions.
Even her age is considered off limits. A Temasek spokesman was unwilling to
reveal her age or date of birth, although a Temasek bond document in 2005
said she was 52.
Ho began her career at the Ministry of Defense, where she met her husband,
Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. While
Lee took up a variety of cabinet positions, Ho moved to state-owned
Singapore Technologies in 1987, running a mix of defense, technology,
property and stock brokerages that she restructured, divesting some units
and listing others.
Temasek's chairman, S. Dhanabalan, a former cabinet minister, asked her to
head Temasek in 2002, telling local media at the time that Ho was "the best
person for the job," that it had "nothing to do" with her being Lee's wife,
and citing "a willingness on her part to take calculated risks."
How come most of the calculations resulted in massive losses?????????
Dhanabalan even referred to ST's purchase of disk drive maker Micropolis,.
which was liquidated soon afterwards with debts of 630 million Singapore
dollars, saying Ho had had the courage to cut the losses.
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