Temasek Holdings Pte will focus on investing in companies with large, domestic-focused businesses as it seeks to avoid risks tied to simmering geopolitical tensions around the world.
The company is looking to place such bets in countries with fast-growing economies, Chief Investment Officer Rohit Sipahimalani said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Qatar on Tuesday. The Singaporean state-owned investor views geopolitics as one of the biggest risks to its portfolio at the moment.
“Geopolitics and the impact of that,” said Sipahimalani, who is in the Gulf nation to attend the Qatar Economic Forum. “We are addressing that by looking really at large domestic markets or things that are self contained within an economic ecosystem so we’re less impacted by that. So I think that should be okay.”
Temasek’s investment portfolio totalled S$382bn ($282bn) as of March 31, 2023. The company is an investor in some of the world’s most global firms, including Standard Chartered Plc, a London-based lender that is one of the largest European banks operating in emerging markets and makes almost all of its money in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
It remains heavily invested in Chinese companies even as Asia’s biggest economy comes under pressure from a housing slump and mounting geopolitical tensions with the US. The firm led by Chief Executive Officer Dilhan Pillay had 22% of its portfolio invested in the nation as of March last year.
Sipahimalani, who became CIO in January 2020 said the company believes in consumer-focused companies in China, like beverage makers or providers of durable goods.