Singapore - GIC, Temasek & MAS 02 (Sep 09 - Jul 11)

[kennynah]

I think the Chinese have they means of going around non-access to YouTube..

eg, if u try accessing "ugly Betty", u can find the entire series in tudou...

I won't undermine the quality of tudou or qq.. they hv a natural mass market.. N they command of the Chinese language n understanding of the PRCs taste

[winston]

Pheim Asset Management & its CEO ordered to pay civil penalty to MAS
By Jo-Ann Huang | Posted: 17 September 2010 2258 hrs

SINGAPORE : The Singapore High Court has ordered Malaysian fund manager Pheim Asset Management and its chief executive, Dr Tan Chong Koay, to each pay a civil penalty of S$250,000 and legal costs to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

In a landmark judgement, the High Court found Dr Tan to have contravened market rigging provisions under the Securities and Futures Act by trading with the intention of creating a false or misleading appearance in the price of United Envirotech (UET) shares.

Dr Tan was found by the High Court to have placed large orders to buy UET shares through Pheim Malaysia from 29 December to 31 December 2004. He did this within the last half an hour of trading on each of those days.

The trades accounted for 88 per cent of all UET shares traded over the three days, causing the share price to increase by 17 per cent.

Previous media reports also said this had triggered performance bonuses totalling S$50,790 to be paid to the company.

The court ruled that Dr Tan's sole purpose of the trades was to raise and set a higher market price for UET shares.

This act of "window dressing" then led certain funds managed by the Pheim Group to outperform their respective benchmarks, said MAS in its statement.

MAS Capital Markets Group assistant managing director, Mr Leo Mun Wai, said in a statement that "fund managers should not engage in window-dressing practices that would mislead investors as to the performance of securities and the funds under their management."

He added that MAS will not hesitate to pursue perpetrators, local or foreign, who attempt to rig Singapore's capital markets.

Dr Tan was represented by Senior Counsel Michael Hwang and Pheim was represented by Mr Foo Maw Shen of Rodyk & Davidson. Meanwhile, MAS was represented by Senior Counsel Cavinder Bull of Drew and Napier.

In the defence's submissions, the lawyers said Dr Tan and Pheim would not have "clear criteria to guide them as to what constitutes market manipulation or creating a false and misleading appearance".

The lawyers also maintained that Dr Tan and Pheim were merely "going about their genuine investment trades".

Dr Tan could not be reached for comment.

- CNA/al

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 11/1/.html

[winston]

CIMB dealer fined $50k By Robin Chan

A DEALER at brokerage CIMB Securities has been fined $50,000 for false trading.

Mr Tan Wee Kiat Melvin made about $3,800 in profits by placing four sell orders for Singapore Petroleum Company shares and then cancelling them in order to push up the selling price.

He placed orders for a total of 275,000 shares in the last five minutes of trading on Aug 11 last year and then promptly deleted three orders seconds before the session closed, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement yesterday.

'Mr Tan's intention was to create the appearance of a large supply of shares on sale in the market and thereby discourage potential sellers from placing further sell orders.'

Mr Tan fully cooperated with the MAS investigation and admitted to false trading. He also paid the $50,000 civil penalty without court action. His Capital Markets Services representative licence has been suspended for three months, the statement said.

'The entry and deletion of orders with intent to artificially raise or depress the closing price of securities distorts the market and undermines its efficiency, because the closing price would not reflect the forces of genuine supply and demand,' said Mr Leo Mun Wai, assistant managing director for capital markets at the MAS.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 82059.html

[winston]

Pheim's case happened in 2004. Does it take 6 years to prosecute someone ?

CIMB's case happened last year. Looks like their productivity is improving...

[winston]

BUSINESS TIMES

The Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) will invest a much bigger portion of its portfolio in emerging markets, especially Asia, after a major review of its investment policy in May this year.

Five economies - China, India, Brazil, Korea and Taiwan - account for nearly 80 percent of what will be GIC's emerging markets universe.

[winston]

Can Domestic Consumption and Intra-Asian trade replace exports to the Developed World ? Did exports to the Developed World actually drop ?

GIC expects slow growth in West for next 10 years

SINGAPORE, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The Government of Singapore Investment Corp expects economic growth in developed countries to be slow over the next decade which is why it plans to invest more in the developing world, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Group Chief Investment Officer Ng Kok Song told a conference in Singapore that GIC's in-house economists expect the developed world to grow by 2.4 percent this year compared with 8 percent for emerging Asia.

Asian economies can offset weakening exports by boosting domestic consumption but policymakers in the West are constrained by what they can do because of the accumulation of debt in previous years, he said.

GIC, which manages over $200 billion, said on Monday it will put a larger portion of its funds in emerging markets.


Source: Reuters

[kennynah]

they just rebalanced their portfolio....and now, they wana to justify to their actions lor.....

[LenaHuat]

Re-read CIO Ng's statements. He said returns from emerging market's REAL ESTATE and PTE EQUITY will given better returns than equities.

[winston]

MS is indeed very smart. Started the business at US$37m and now selling it for US$1b.


GIC, OCBC join group buying Morgan Stanley's CICC stake

HONG KONG, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Singapore's GIC and OCBC's insurance arm have joined a group led by U.S. private equity firms KKR [KKR.UL] and TPG [TPG.UL] that is buying Morgan Stanley's 34.3 percent stake in top Chinese investment bank CICC.

Reuters late on Wednesday reported that the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) [GIC.UL], Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, and another unnamed investor had joined the bid by KKR and TPG for Morgan Stanley's stake.

[ID:nLDE6B00I4] Bloomberg reported on Thursday that another member of the buyer group was Singapore's Great Eastern Holdings Ltd, the insurance company controlled by Overseas Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC).

Morgan Stanley has been trying to sell its stake in China International Capital Corp (CICC) for several years now, and indicated as early as 2007 its intent to form a new investment banking joint venture with China Fortune Securities.

However, since China's securities rules forbid foreign companies from having more than one joint venture at a time in the country, it had to put those plans on hold pending the sale of its CICC stake.

Morgan Stanley is expected to get more than $1 billion for the stake, which it received for just $37 million when the venture was founded more than a decade ago.

Source: Reuters

[winston]

Pheim Asset Management & its CEO ordered to pay civil penalty to MAS
By Jo-Ann Huang

SINGAPORE : The Singapore High Court has ordered Malaysian fund manager Pheim Asset Management and its chief executive, Dr Tan Chong Koay, to each pay a civil penalty of S$250,000 and legal costs to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 11/1/.html

Fund Manager Appeals Singapore’s First Civil Stock-Rigging Case By Andrea Tan

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pheim Asset Management Sdn. and its Chief Executive Officer Tan Chong Koay, appealed a Singapore High Court ruling that they’d manipulated the shares of a listed company in the country’s first civil stock-rigging lawsuit.

“If left to stand, the decision would either serve to curtail genuine market activity by the timorous or to set a penal trap for the unwary,” they said in their appeal filed Dec. 21 at the Singapore High Court.

Tan and Pheim bought almost 90 percent of the traded shares of United Envirotech Ltd. from Dec. 29 to Dec. 31, 2004. The shares rose 17 percent over the three trading days and helped raise the net asset value of the fund management firm’s accounts, triggering bonuses of S$50,790 ($38,866) and a management fee of S$115. Justice Lai Siu Chiu said the gain sought by Pheim and Tan wasn’t monetary, in ruling they manipulated the stock.

Tan and his Malaysian fund management company were fined S$250,000 each. The Monetary Authority of Singapore sought a fine of S$1 million for each.

Pheim “is a value investor,” the company and Tan said in their appeal. “Pheim is also a contrarian investor -- buying when others are selling and selling when others are buying.”

The Monetary Authority has no evidence to prove Pheim and Tan had any other intention but to buy undervalued shares, they said in the 212 pages of court documents filed to back the appeal.

“There was in fact no other intention,” they said.

‘Good Investment’

Pheim expected shares of companies in the water treatment sector to rise since 2001, according to the filing. United Envirotech shares were overlooked and deemed to be a good investment, Pheim said in its appeal.

Singapore, which expanded its fund management industry to a record S$1.2 trillion at the end of 2009, has vowed to clamp down on market abuse. The central bank, which won the city’s first civil lawsuits for stock rigging and insider trading this year tightened the rules for financial institutions in reporting employee misconduct.

“Such offenses undermine the effectiveness and efficiency of the securities market and are often insidious and difficult to detect,” Lai said.

Tan, who founded Pheim Group, was in 2002 named one of five successful Singapore-based boutique fund managers by the Government of Singapore Investment Corp..

Tan has offices in Singapore and Malaysia. He had said, jokingly, in August 2006 that Pheim, which manages about $1 billion, was a made-up word which means Please Help Everyone Invest Money.

Tan and Pheim “would not have risked their livelihood and business by seeking to manipulate” the stock knowing that any unusual trading activities would be tracked by the financial regulator, according to their appeal.

The case is Pheim Asset Management Sdn Bhd. v Monetary Authority of Singapore, CA186/2010 in the Singapore High Court.


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-1 ... -case.html