Under The Willow Tree

After a hiatus from blogspot to this web address, under the willow tree is moving back to its original blogspot address, HERE

pls update your bookmarks and feeds as this blogsite will be deleted in due course.

the posts on this blog have been archived at the original blog

thank you

Nobody can sing and dance like MJ. Not Justin T, not Usher… Nobody.

When put MJ and Britney Spears together, and you realise that Britney can’t sing or dance. MJ makes Britney look like a backup girl

2 major alternative commentary websites in Singapore’s blogosphere, TOC and Wayangparty.com, have come out with their guns blazing and heavily criticising the government’s proposed changes to Parliament.

Andrew Loh calls it a “A mockery of Parliament” because of the huge number of “loser MPs”, “nominated MPs”, and “walkover MPs.” He says,

“Parliament being filled with a majority of un-elected members is a joke. Pure and simple, no matter what rhetoric the prime minister uses in trying to convince one and all to accept these changes.”

Much as I have been a govt critic in the past, I think the changes announced by Lee Hsien Loong are actually a positive step forward for Singapore as a whole, and that TOC and Wayangparty have got it wrong this time. And much as I think I am going to receive major flak for my comments here, I feel it is necessary to make my case public.

Read the rest of this entry »

Warning: This post contains several expletives. Readers who are offended by strong language are advised to proceed cautiously.

Myrna Thomas of Temasek has written to the press to “explain” the BoA divestment. Her press statement not only does not clarify anything, it only insults the intelligence of Singaporeans by repeating the same truisms and smokescreens that Temasek has been saying time and time again.

Why Temasek sold its stake in BoA

I REFER to recent reports and commentaries on Temasek’s divestment of its Bank of America (BoA) stake. We would like to clarify some of the points raised.

Temasek invests with the objective of delivering sustainable returns over the long term. This means our investment strategy is not aimed at delivering target returns on a year-by-year basis. This is why we report our portfolio returns not just for a single year, but for various time horizons in our annual Temasek Review.

What the F*cK does this have to do with the BoA issue? You donks have been repeating this nonsense year in year out ad nauseum – it does not give us any information at all, it does not tell us anything –  its completely useless statements that achieves nothing!!!

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Forget about Investing for the “Long Term” - Temasek’s new investment strategy has changed into “Buy High, Sell Low!!!” 

What else could you possibly deduce from the fact that Bank of America’s shares have surged 74% since our dear Ho Ching & company decided to divest of their BoA shares? This fact has been graciously pointed out to us by the New York Times – article appended below.

The world is watching our dear Singaporean SWF. And Temasek is becoming the laughing stock of the world financial community.

A commenter on the NYT blog has said:

Regarding Temasek’s decision to sell BofA shares near the low – perhaps sovereign wealth fund managers are really just government bureaucrats masquerading as fund managers? If anyone is going to take a loss on an investment – I’m glad it’s them.

— Posted by Jay Young

Earlier, David Faber of CNBC noted that Temasek’s loss was one of the biggest losses ever recorded by a single fund on a single investment in Wall Street’s history.

I’m not sure I want to be a Singaporean anymore.

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Rear Admiral (NS) Lui Tuck Yew was the Minister of State for Education until March 2009, when he was promoted to Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts with effect from 1st April 2009. With his promotion, he displaced the incumbent Dr Lee Boon Yang, who now found himself without a job.

Only 25 days after RAdm Lui’s promotion, Dr Lee Boon Yang was the newly appointed non-executive Chairman of Keppel Corp, Singapore’s largest industrial conglomerate. It was an event of little fanfare, and by the lack of any noise made by Keppel shareholders, you would have thought that everybody is happy about the change in leadership at the helm of Keppel’s board of directors.

However, a careful examination of Dr Lee Boon Yang’s CV, and the demands of the role of Chairman of the Board of an industrial conglomerate like Keppel – leaves the interested observer rather puzzled.

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“Yes, they were good long term investments with risks thoroughly assessed”

- Minister Tharman, Jan 2008 on Singapore investments in banks.

These were the words of Singapore’s Minister of Finance, slightly more than a year ago when Singapore’s SWFs made major investments in a few global financial institutions. Take note, in particular, that Minister Tharman was defending the individual investments made by the SWFs in the banks – not the portfolio performance.

A year later, everything had changed. The stock markets had declined significantly and the global financial system was in major turmoil. The stock prices of the big banks had sunk to record lows after having their balance sheets destroyed by the dislocation in credit markets. Seeing that his original argument was no longer tenable, Tharman changed his tack as the investments in the banks sunk deeper and deeper into the red. Now, instead of taking the line that the investments in the banks were good long term investments, he instead argued that Singapore’s portfolios were well diversified, and hence Singapore’s investments were fine.

‘We would be worried if global banks comprise a large proportion of the portfolios of GIC and Temasek, or for that matter, any other highly vulnerable industry globally,’ he said. ‘But these are diversified portfolios, with not a large degree of concentration risk.’

- Minister Tharman, Jan 2009, on Singapore investments in banks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three cheers to Conrad Raj today for his much needed commentary on Temasek’s divestment of BoA in TODAY. Conrad is one of the few independent voices in Singapore’s journalism scene who truly is bold and daring to ask the tough questions of Singapore’s corporate elite.

Singaporeans need to thank him for calling Temasek Holdings into account and for voicing out the concerns of Temasek’s true shareholders – ordinary Singaporeans like you and me.With parliament unwilling and unable to do its job of demanding transparency and accountability from Temasek, it is absolutely necessary for independent journalists and the media to ask tough questions and demand straight answers from the stewards of Singapore’s capital. Indeed, Singaporeans deserve much more than to be patronized repeatedly by being told of the SWFs’ “long-term” view of their investments.

I hope that Conrad and his business team will be all the more bold in questioning the managers of our country’s savings – for it is only when shareholders demand and monitor it that corporate governance becomes effective in protecting the interests of those it is supposed to serve.
 
Singaporeans too should ask the tough questions needed by writing to the press, or picking up their own pens in their blogs.

As DBS staff bid their final farewell to chief executive Richard Stanley, who died of leukemia last Saturday, the shares of Singapore’s biggest bank continued to rally. DBS stock price continued its rise, even as Mr. Stanley’s cortege passed through Shenton Way this afternoon. This is despite the fact that in the last four months, it has been Mr. Koh Boon Hwee, Chairman of DBS and a non-banker, who has been steering the DBS ship amidst Stanley’s absence and Singapore’s steepest recession.

DBS’ stock rise comes amidst a broader market rally. It is thus not clear if the stock rise indicates that investors are placing confidence in the bank’s chairman, or if it is a simply a stock movement in tandem with the broader market. The DBS board, nevertheless, feels that Mr Koh is worth his weight in gold.

In comparison to Mr. Stanley who was paid almost $5 million for eight months of work in 2008, Mr. Koh has received $2 million in ’special remuneration’ from DBS for assuming an ‘active management oversight’ role from Jan 1 to April 30 last year. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cleantech industry is defined as the industry which develops and produces products and services that improve operational performance, productivity, or efficiency while reducing costs, inputs, energy consumption, waste, or pollution. The Cleantech industry is thus has many sub-industries under its umbrella, including renewable energy – wind, solar, biomass/biogas, biofuels, waste-to-energy, geothermal, hydroelectric. Other sub-industries would be energy efficiency technology (buildings, smart grids) and also technology that allows transportation to go green – such as electric cars, trains etc.

Singapore has been making a push into the Cleantech industry. Read the rest of this entry »