Temasek revamps into three entities in big shake-up

Dilhan Pillay, executive director and CEO of Temasek Holdings / Source: Business Times

Singapore’s Temasek will divide its operations into three entities, Temasek Global Investments (TGI), Temasek Singapore (TSG), and Temasek Partnership Solutions (TPS). The three entities to manage its portfolio segments.

It is in one of the biggest overhauls in the state-owned investor’s 51-year history, as it prepares for a new generation of leaders.

“What we want to do is to make sure that we test the next generation and prepare them to take leadership of the company and for them to chart the course for 2040,” said Dilhan Pillay, executive director and CEO of Temasek, at a media briefing.

Temasek CFO Png Chin Yee will concurrently be appointed as president of TSG from April 1 next year. This entity will oversee the company’s investments in Singapore firms. She is currently the CFO of Temasek.

These shareholdings, which accounted for 41% of Temasek’s total portfolio of S$434 billion (US$338.2 billion) as of March 31, include local stock market heavyweights such as DBS and Singtel. Its Singapore-based portfolio companies have an aggregate revenue of about US$155.9 billion and employ more than 160,000 people in the city-state, said the company.

Nagi Hamiyeh, head of Temasek’s operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, will concurrently be appointed as president of TGI, focusing on Temasek’s international investments. He will remain based in Paris when he assumes the new role next April.

Temasek’s holdings in overseas companies, including a 25% stake in Hong Kong-based retail giant AS Watson Holdings, comprise 36% of its total portfolio.

Pillay said that TPS, which is undergoing a review, will not have a CEO or president yet.

Instead, it will be run by an operating committee that works together with Gabriel Lim, the CEO-designate of Seviora Holdings. He will assume the role fully on September 1.

In addition to Seviora, TPS will include Temasek’s co-investments and VC-focused arm Vertex Holdings.

Photo credit: Temasek

Lim will work with TPS to undertake a strategic review of existing asset management companies, which have more than US$70.1 billion of assets under management as of March 31, and explore growing new ones.