Weekly Digest: Temasek plans $30bn of US investments; AIA fined in HK for anti-laundering slip
TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK
Singapore’s Temasek plans to invest up to $30 billion over the next five years in the US, its Head of North America Jane Atherton said.
Temasek is particularly interested in areas related to artificial intelligence, such as data centres, semiconductors and battery storage.
Its exposure to the Americas surpassed China in the last financial year for the first time in a decade.
About 22% of Temasek's investments are in the Americas, or $63 billion, and 19% in China.
Source: Reuters
AIA Group was fined HK$23 million ($3 million) by Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority for anti-money laundering oversight, after the life insurer was found to have “technical issues” with its Hong Kong branch’s anti-money laundering system.
An on-site inspection by the regulator found “technical issues” with AIA’s anti-money laundering system and associated algorithm, the Insurance Authority said on August 2.
The inspection was related to business between March 2016 and October 2022, where some customers who were politically exposed persons (PEPs) failed to be picked up during its screening “alert” processes.
Source: Insurance Authority
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) signed six memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth up to $50 billion with state-owned banks in China, the sovereign wealth fund said.
MoUs were signed with the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), Bank of China (BoC), China Construction Bank (CCB), China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).
The MoUs aim to encourage two-way capital flows through both debt and equity. They come as part of PIF’s strategy to foster institutional partnerships globally.
Source: Public Investment Fund
OTHER INVESTMENT NEWS
AUSTRALIA
Australia's federal court fined Mercer Superannuation A$11.3 million ($7.4 million) for making false claims about the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects of its investment products.
This represents the Australian regulator ASIC's first enforcement action targeting greenwashing.
ASIC cited Mercer's failure to ensure the accuracy of its ESG marketing statements. Mercer has accepted the court's decision and says it has reviewed its internal processes.
Source: ASIC
CHINA
Chinese regulators have in recent months asked several large state-owned clients of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to drop the auditor as it braces for penalties over its work for troubled property developer Evergrande.
The regulators, mainly the Ministry of Finance, have given "window guidance", or unofficial, verbal instructions to big state-owned financial institutions since at least April, said the sources who declined to be identified.
Bank of China (BOC), China Life Insurance, PICC, China Taiping Insurance and China Cinda Asset Management, are now among the more than 30 listed Chinese companies that have axed PwC as an auditor this year, according to Reuters calculations.
Source: Reuters
JAPAN
The Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) posted an investment return of 3.65% for the April-June quarter.
Domestic and foreign equities saw returns 1.75% and 9.96%, respectively. Foreign fixed income saw made a 5.5% profit, while domestic fixed income saw a negative return of 2.39%.
The totalled assets of GPIF's portfolio stood at ¥254.7 trillion ($1.8 trillion) as of June 30.
Source: GPIF
Dai-ichi Life Insurance invested $40 million in “DigitalBridge Partners III”, a digital infrastructure fund managed by DigitalBridge Investment Management.
The fund primarily invests in data centers, cell towers, and fiber networks in the US, Europe and Asia including Japan.
This is the first time that Dai-ichi Life has invested in a fund that specialises in digital infrastructure.
Source: Dai-ichi Life
MALAYSIA
Malaysia's pension fund for federal employees Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) (KWAP) is pausing its plan to invest more abroad as the central bank urges state firms to help support the local currency.
Given the recent pressure on the ringgit, “we decided to have a relook at how we split our deployment outside of Malaysia,” chief investment officer Hazman Hilmi Salahuddin said in a briefing July 31.
KWAP still plans to increase its foreign assets to 30% of its portfolio in the long term. Foreign assets accounted for 24% of its portfolio last year, up from 20% in 2022.
In related news, KWAP's net income surged to 9.7 billion ($2.08 billion) last year from 263 million ringgit ($59.4 million) in 2022 as global stock markets rallied.
Source: Bloomberg
Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional has acquire two local state-owned venture capital firms, Malaysia Venture Capital Management and Penjana Kapita.
The price was not disclosed.
Khazanah seeks to build a national fund of funds with an initial allocation of RM1 billion ($226 million) to invest in startups. The investments will be made via venture capital and private equity funds.
Source: Khazanah
The above briefs were curated from company news releases and third-party sources.