What is the investment strategy of Temasek or GIC?
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So far Temasek or GIC has failed in its investment strategy. In the case of Shin Corp the rationale to acquire such weighty stock from a crisis appeared to be judgmental like happening in Micropolis - not knowing enough about the phasing out of disk drives by more efficient storage devices.
With the lack of accountability or transparency being exercise there is no proper check on how our scholars go about investing our people's hard-earned monies.
The conclusion from all the happening so far can be drawn from all their returns on big overseas share purchases. It would appear that the decisions so far is only based on gut feel or judgmental intuitions.
It is based on "The stock is a good stock or it is a good time to buy on the cheap". As it has turned out most of the time, it was not so good after all due to lack of understanding of the industry or the political risk unknown to scholars.
Oei Hong Leong (e.g. National Iron and China state firms) or even Warren Buffet (e.g. China Oil) were different. They played it safe. They were consistent in their investments not based on such judgmental approach or "cheap to buy".
They appear to have the keener perception of true opportunity presented by long-term performance and return values reflected by the dropped prices. If the price really drops below long-term performance measured by returns and residual assets they will then move in for the acquisitions. Not based on "good buy" or "price has dropped"
Now Warren Buffer just got out of China Oil with a $20 billion profit whereas our Temasek and GIC happily moved into China Oil simply because of our scholars being seen again as being judgmental about good buy as seen happening in Shin Corp:"Good buy because of discount or price drop"
That in short has been what Temasek or GIC was doing all these time resulting in billion dollar losses due to lack of understanding of worth measured by fall-back asset value plus proven discounted growth strategy. -
just buy into the company and pray for the best?
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Investment Strategy:
(1) Gain control of Singapore reserves and savings
(2) Buy and Buy
(3) If gain, keep gains and telecast to world.
If loss, "honest mistake" and become long term holder
(4) Replenish by raising prices of services like SPH, SBS, Comfort Delgro, SingTel, Starhub, Singapore Power, etc
(5) Repeat step (1)