TEMASEK'S NET PORTFOLIO VALUE HITS S$313 BLN AS AT MARCH 31, 2019

By Massita Ahmad

SINGAPORE, July 9 (Bernama) – Temasek Holdings, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore, today announced that its net portfolio value stood at S$313 billion (S$1=RM3.04) as at March 31, 2019, up S$183 billion over the decade.

One-year total shareholder return was 1.49 per cent, with annualised returns of 15 per cent compounded over 45 years since inception in 1974.

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The company anticipated an increasingly challenging environment since last July, and moderated its investment pace, investing some S$24 billion and divesting S$28 billion for the financial year ended March 31, 2019.

Temasek received dividend income of S$9 billion from its portfolio.

“We remain anchored in Asia with 66 per cent exposure by underlying assets. We have been growing our exposure in Europe (10 per cent) and North America (15 per cent), in line with the emerging trends and opportunities,” chief executive officer of Temasek International, Dilhan Pillay, said at a briefing on Temasek annual review here today.

“These two regions now form a quarter of our underlying portfolio exposure, behind Singapore (26 per cent) and China (26 per cent),” he said.

Geographically, he said the US again accounted for the largest share of Temasek’s new investments during the year, followed by Europe and China.

“Our underlying exposure is 60:40 in mature economies and growth regions.”

Mature economies refer to Singapore, Japan and South Korea, North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand while growth regions are Asia (excluding Singapore, Japan and South Korea), Latin America, Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Temasek’s portfolio comprises both listed and unlisted assets, with the latter consisting of companies and funds.

Financial services remain as the largest share or 25 per cent of its portfolio by sector.

For new investments, Temasek continues to focus on non-bank financial technology and payments platforms such as Ant Financial in China that operates the flagship Alipay payments platform, and Global Payments, a global payment solutions provider.

Technology, media and telecommunications, particularly technology, remains a key investment focus.

Some of its new investments include North American companies such as UST Global, a digital solutions provider and DoorDash, an online food delivery marketplace; OlaCabs, an online ride-hailing company in India; and Bionexo, a Brazilian healthcare e-commerce company.

Temasek also stepped up its divestment pace in cognisance of macroeconomic headwinds that included Gilead Sciences, Cargill Tropical Palm and Klabin.

It continues to maintain significant holdings in Alibaba, CenturyLink and IHS Markit, even as it shed some stakes to rebalance its portfolio.

It completed its divestment of Bank Danamon post-March 2019.

Looking ahead, the company’s senior managing director, portfolio strategy and risk group, Png Chin Yee, said: “While the increasingly challenging global environment may dampen business confidence and investment, we expect policymakers to be primed for dovish policies that could cushion any substantive pressure on growth.

“If growth continues to be weak, the low interest rate environment is likely to persist into the foreseeable future. This could lower returns expectations for the longer term.”

Temasek has 11 offices around the world -- Beijing, Hanoi, Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore in Asia; and London, New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Mexico City, and Sao Paulo outside Asia.

-- BERNAMA