Singapore's sovereign wealth funds : the political risk of overseas investments

This paper seeks to examine Singapore's two sovereign wealth funds (SWFs)-the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore (GIC) and Temasek Holdings (Temasek)-and the political risks which they are exposed to in their overseas investments. We argue that Temasek has hitherto exposed itself t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wu, Friedrich
Other Authors: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/104393
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/4542
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:This paper seeks to examine Singapore's two sovereign wealth funds (SWFs)-the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore (GIC) and Temasek Holdings (Temasek)-and the political risks which they are exposed to in their overseas investments. We argue that Temasek has hitherto exposed itself to a greater level of political risk than GIC, but is in turn rewarded with a higher rate of returns on its investments. At the same time, we find that political risk is an inevitable challenge for SWFs in general. In fact, as worldwide opinion has turned towards demanding for greater transparency and accountability from SWFs, the political risks faced by SWFs have correspondingly risen. This paper seeks to throw some light on this issue by undertaking a case study of Singapore's two SWFs, which are consistently ranked among the global top 10 SWFs by assets, and have attracted much worldwide attention in recent times as a result of their politically-controversial overseas investments.