Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund Deals 2008

Recent report by Business Time highlighted a very interesting articles on Singapore two sovereign wealth fund - Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) & Temasek Holding which have been involved in five of the 10 biggest deals involving sovereign wealth funds on record, according to the latest estimates by Thomson Reuters.

Singapore's two state-owned funds have invest billions of dollars into US and European banks since last year. Together, both SWFs accounted for 10 out of the 22 major deals involving sovereign funds this year, until 28 Aug 08

The Biggest Sovereign Wealth Deal is GIC's injection of 11 billion Swiss francs (S$14.24 billion) into Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, late last December is a sovereign fund single investment record, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

GIC was also part of the consortium led by Spain's Ferrovial Group that bought UK-listed BAA, the world's biggest airport operator, for £10.3 billion (S$26.7 billion) in May 2006. That deal remain as the largest investment involving sovereign funds on record.

This year alone, both GIC and Temasek have made a combined US$9.1 billion worth of investments, more than a third of all deals involving sovereign funds worldwide according to Thomson Reuters estimates.

GIC invests Singapore's foreign reserves including pension savings, estimated at over US$300 billion, while Temasek manages a separate S$185 billion investment portfolio.