A receptionist stands behind a logo of the state investor Temasek Holdings at their Singapore office July 8, 2014. Photo Agencies SINGAPORE - Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Wednesday that Temasek Holdings has initiated an internal review of its investment in the now-bankrupt FTX criptocurrency exchange, which resulted in a write-down of $275 million.
Wong, who is also Finance Minister, said the loss did not mean that the governance system of state investor Temasek was not working and no amount of due diligence and monitoring can eliminate the risks altogether.
But Singapore's leader-in-waiting told parliament that the loss was disappointing and had caused reputational damage to Temasek.
The fact that other leading global institutional investors like BlackRock and Sequoia Capital also invested in FTX does not mitigate this, said Wong.
After putting about $275 million into FTX, Temasek decided to write down the investment after the collapse of the exchange.
The review will be led by an independent internal team reporting directly to the board and will not involve those who made the investment, Wong said.
Temasek said it had no direct exposure in cryptocurrencies, and that it had no direct exposure in FTX, which was 0.09% of its net portfolio value of S $403 billion, $293.97 billion as of March 31, 2022.
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From February to October 2021 to October 2021, Temasek said it had conducted extensive due diligence on FTX and its audited financial statement showed that it was profitable. Wong told lawmakers that individual losses did not affect returns to Singapore's reserves, which are tied to long-term returns.
SoftBank Group Corp's 9984 is one of the other backers of FTX. T Vision Fund and Sequoia Capital have slashed their investment to zero after FTX, founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, filed for bankruptcy protection in the US this month in the highest-profile criptocurrency blowup to date.