|
|
|
Singapore's
GIC says able to bail out another bank
AFP
30
Jan
08
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i_GCJBkesd6KurNtHlhQy3oX4JfA
The
Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), fresh from
multi-billion-dollar capital injections into troubled global
financial institutions, has the capacity for an additional
bailout, a report said Wednesday.
"We will look at
any deal that is shown to us. We have a duty to do so. We would
still have the capacity if we find it worthwhile to invest,"
The Business Times quoted Tony Tan, GIC's deputy chairman and
executive director, as saying.
Earlier this month GIC said
it would invest 6.88 billion US dollars in US banking giant
Citigroup, whose finances have been battered by a US housing
slump.
That deal came a little more than a month after GIC
said it would pump almost 10 billion dollars into Swiss bank UBS,
another victim of a crisis in the United States subprime, or
higher-risk, mortgage sector.
Whether a similar deal would
be as large "is a matter to be decided," the newspaper
quoted Tan as saying.
GIC, established in 1981 to manage
Singapore's foreign reserves, says it manages "well above"
100 billion dollars.
Analysts say it could be as much as
300 billion or more, a figure which places GIC among the largest
sovereign wealth funds in the world, according to an October
report by Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
Sovereign wealth
funds are a form of government-created investment vehicle whose
newfound market muscle has led to concerns in recipient countries
over national security issues and a lack of transparency by the
funds.
Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, who holds
a cabinet position as Minister Mentor, is the chairman of
GIC.
Lee said recently that sovereign wealth funds from
Singapore are no threat to the economies of Western nations, and
are relatively small.
GIC has been a traditionally
secretive organisation but GIC executives have recently given a
series of press interviews. Tan was quoted on Monday as saying
the company plans to disclose more about its operations.
|
|
