Unless, some miracles come along, Temasek is heading into hot soup when the Singpaore’s  Prime Minister’s Lee Hsien Loong announced that  Singapore state investor Temasek should be held accountable for its controversial purchase of Thailand’s Shin Corp which is purely a commercial deal which the Singapore government will not interfere with.
(Incidentally, Temasek  is  headed by the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s wife Ho Ching.)

However, Lee further elaborate that it was premature to talk about losses on the Shin deal.

He said that “  if you take no risk, you make no reward. So you have to make sure that across the portfolio, all the projects you have undertaken, overall you come out ahead.” .”That’s what Temasek aspires to do. On each case, they are very careful to make sure that each investment is a good one, but as it affects results you have to look at the whole portfolio and decide whether it has been good.”

Some details of the botched investment:

• Temasek led a US$3.8 billion (RM13.31 billion) acquisition of Shin from the family of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra a year ago and has seen its investment more than halve in value;

• The Temasek-led consortium is now sitting on a loss on paper of about US$2 billion, while one of Shin’s units faces fines and damages of about US$2.7 billion due to a licence fee dispute with the government.

• Temasek paid 49.25 baht (RM4.79) per share last January for the telecoms and media group. Shin shares traded around 23.60 baht by midday.

 

• Temasek’s acquisition of Shin is currently under investigation in Bangkok for possible violations of Thailand’s foreign ownership laws

(Reuters (15/1/07) )