TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK
Market valuations have not yet priced in a global economic recession, Temasek said, adding that it was waiting for further declines before stepping up investments.
“Current valuations are not reflecting the risk of downturn we see in the next 12 to 18 months,” Temasek’s chief investment officer, Rohit Sipahimalani, said on September 30.
“I do expect as these valuations correct, we will again step up our pace of investment,” Sipahimalani told a session at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore.
Temasek remains committed on its four major investment trends, including digitisation, longer lifespans, sustainable living and the future of consumption, he said.
“I think those trends are still valid,” he said. “For the long term, we will continue investing alongside them with a few nuances.”
Source: The Business Times
Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan has announced plans to double its headcount in its Singapore office as part of its strategy to step up its expansion in Asia.
The Ontario Teacher’s will be moving into a new office next year with the capacity for about 45-50 people, and currently only has around 25 staff in the country.
“Singapore gives us another dimension in terms of dealing with Southeast Asia and Australia, it’s clearly a vibrant financial hub with lots of really helpful co-investors and financial advisers,” said Jo Taylor, president and chief executive of the $177 billion pension fund in an interview with Bloomberg on September 30.
Source: Bloomberg
Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance have committed to a $650 million mandate into alternative assets managed by Blackstone.
Samsung Group’s two asset management units, Samsung Asset Management and Samsung SRA Asset Management will manage the transaction of the total $650 million investment in overseas real estate, infrastructure and private equity managed by Blackstone. The investment will be managed by Samsung’s asset management arms Samsung Asset Management and Samsung SRA Asset Management.
It will mark the so far largest commitment made by a firm within Samsung Financial Networks, a partnership of Samsung's five financial units consisting of Samsung Life, Samsung Fire & Marine, Samsung Card, Samsung Securities and Samsung Asset Management, created in April 2022.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
OTHER INVESTMENT NEWS
AUSTRALIA
Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC) has selected Iress as its new technology partner in a bid to improve member outcomes and reduce administration complexity while driving down the cost by switching to a digital-first approach.
Iress has won the mandate for an initial five-year contract and will provide CSC with its registry software, Acurity, for the administration of its defined benefit scheme members.
CSC members will migrate to Iress' unified registry and operating model in stages over a three-year period — the first stage is expected to be completed by July 2023.
Source: Financial Standard
CHINA
The average assets under management of family offices interviewed in a study by the Financial Services Development Council and the Global Family Business Research Center at Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance increased threefold last year to Rmb29.7 billion ($4.4 billion) compared with 2018.
The two entities carried out the research, entitled “China Family Office Report 2022”, by interviewing 30 family offices (FOs) in China, including 14 single family offices (SFOs) and 16 multi-family offices (MFOs).
The average AUM for an SFO was RMB24.9 billion compared with Rmb35 billion for an MFO.
Source: Fund Selector Asia
The value of products registered by the Insurance Asset Management Association of China, an organization for the country's insurance asset management industry, totalled RMB684.84 billion (about $97.42 billion) in the first eight months of the year.
Of the 340 projects registered during the period, 316 were registered for debt investment plans and 14 for equity investment plans, with the fund size reaching RMB575.14 billion and RMB43.49 billion, respectively, the association said.
Ten private equity insurance funds were established during the period, with the fund size reaching RMB66.21 billion.
By the end of August, the association handled the registration of 2,693 products with a fund size totalling RMB5.97 trillion, the association said.
Source: Xinhua
HONG KONG
Canadian insurers Sun Life and Manulife are among companies considering bids for an insurance partnership with Hong Kong banking group Dah Sing, according to people familiar with the matter.
Other firms weighing an offer include closely-held FTLife Insurance, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The insurer is owned by an arm of Hong Kong’s New World Development, the billionaire Cheng family’s conglomerate.
Dah Sing is working with an adviser to pursue a so-called bancassurance partnership after it terminated an agreement with Tahoe Life Insurance, Bloomberg News has reported. A deal, which could be worth a few hundred million dollars, could draw interest from other insurers seeking to expand in the territory, people familiar with the matter have said.
Source: Bloomberg
Hong Kong’s Mandatory Provident Fund administration fees will be slashed by as much as 55% once the centralised digital platform is operational, according to Ayesha Macpherson Lau, chairman of Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, the government entity that supervises the MPF industry.
Construction of the eMPF platform began in 2020 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year at the earliest. It’s expected to become fully operational in early 2025.
Lau says lower fees are a top priority for the MPFA, and that the fund expense ratio or FER has dropped from 2.1% in 2007 to the current 1.37%, thanks to its joint efforts with the MPF industry.
Source: Asia Asset Management
CMB Wing Lung Insurance has entered into a business transfer agreement with China Merchants Insurance (CM Insurance), under which the latter agreed to transfer its general insurance business to the former, China Merchants Bank (CMB) says in a stock exchange filing.
Under the agreement, reached on 28 September 2022, CMB Wing Lung Insurance will issue 9,856,066 new shares to CM Insurance as consideration.
Upon completion of the deal and issue of new shares, CM Insurance will directly hold 25.37% of the enlarged share capital of CMB Wing Lung Insurance. Shenzhen-headquartered CMB will indirectly hold 74.63%. CM Insurance will also apply to the Insurance Authority of Hong Kong to withdraw its insurance licence upon the completion of the deal.
Source: Asia Insurance Review
INDONESIA
Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), BlackRock (through a private credit fund it manages), Allianz Global Investors, Orion Capital Asia, and other global financial institutions have signed an agreement to provide a financing facility of $300 million to Traveloka.
The financing will support digital ecosystem growth in the travel sector and will allow the company to grow further; while cementing its status as one of the region’s technology leaders.
"We are pleased about Traveloka’s financing round… as it aligns with INA’s mission to create prosperity for Indonesia in the long term, by laying down the foundation for a sustainable digital ecosystem, including digital infrastructure, digital services and digital platforms — which will go a long way to drive economic recovery and growth,” said INA’s CEO, Ridha Wirakusumah.
“Supporting the travel sector with their unparalleled convenience and access, online travel agencies (OTAs) have further transformed the industry landscape during the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, OTAs have seen their share of Indonesia’s gross tourism booking increase from 24% prepandemic to 33% in 2021 with an expectation to reach 36% by 2024,” he added.
Source: Indonesia Investment Authority
KOREA
The National Pension Service (NPS) announced on September 29 that its overall return on investment was negative 4.69% at the end of July this year, up 3.31 percentage points from the previous month.
Its return on investment was negative 15.39% in the domestic stock market, negative 7.53% in foreign stock markets, and negative 3.45% in the domestic bond market. The figures are 8.22 percent and 2.17 percent when it comes to alternative investment and overseas bond investment, respectively.
Source: BusinessKorea
SINGAPORE
Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC is on the hunt for property deals and corporate partners across Japan as the falling yen and border reopening trigger a rush of tourists and deals.
Hotels, resorts and ryokan, or traditional Japanese inns, in key cities including Tokyo and Okinawa are among the types of properties being evaluated, its head of global investment and portfolio strategy, Goh Chin Kiong, said.
The fund's recent deal to buy properties from Japanese railway and hotel conglomerate Seibu Holdings hit the low single-digit billions of dollars and GIC is "happy to do more of those sizes", Goh said. Apart from hospitality, it is also interested in real estate such as residential and logistics projects, he added.
Source: Bloomberg
ShopBack has entered into a subscription agreement to raise $80 million in the second tranche of its series F round from 65 Equity Partners. The Singapore-based shopping and rewards platform’s latest backer is a Temasek-backed investment firm with $3.3 billion in assets under management.
Combined with a $80 million tranche led by Asia Partners in July, ShopBack has secured $160 million for its series F round. With the deal, the startup has raised over $310 million in total to date.
Source: Tech in Asia
TAIWAN
Taiwan’s life insurers reported a profit decline of more than one-fifth last month compared with August 2021 as their income from equity investments plunged nearly 50% because of the bear run in stock markets.
The life insurance companies’ pre-tax profit in August 2022 was NT$264.3 billion ($8.3 billion), down 21.9% from NT$338.6 billion in August 2021, according to figures released by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), which publishes the numbers on an irregular basis.
Income from their equity portfolios slid 49.3% to NT$1.36 trillion from NT$2.68 trillion in August 2021, the regulator says in a statement on September 27.
Source: Asia Asset Management
THAILAND
LINE MAN Wongnai announced today that it has raised $265 million in a Series-B investment round led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and LINE Corporation. This fundraising round was also joined by BRV Capital Management, PTT Oil and Retail Business Public Company Limited (OR), Bualuang Ventures and Taiwan Mobile.
With this investment, LINE MAN Wongnai has achieved a valuation of over US$1 billion, making it Thailand’s largest tech startup by valuation.
The funding will be used to strengthen LINE MAN Wongnai’s strong position in the food delivery market, expand new service categories, recruit tech talent and improve tech infrastructure. LINE MAN Wongnai aims to be employing more than 450 talented tech professionals by the end of 2022.
Source: LINE Corp