Friday, February 24, 2012

Singapore Wealth Fund Extends Resources Spree With Purchase of Bunge Shares (BG)

From the WSJ's Deal Journal:
Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds continue to step up their investment in resources companies.
As Dow Jones Newswires reports on Friday, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. bought a 5% stake in U.S. listed global agribusiness and food processing company Bunge Ltd., with a market value close to $500 million. The fund bought 7.305 million shares in Bunge but did not disclose the price at which the shares were purchased....MORE
The Financial Times dives a bit deeper:
Singapore’s GIC builds stake in Bunge
...GIC will become the largest shareholder in the trading house, ahead of blue-chip asset managers such as Vanguard Group, Fidelity and BlackRock.

GIC is already a major shareholder in Glencore, the London-listed commodity trader, through convertible bonds and shares, alongside Aabar, one of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign funds. Singapore’s other sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, is the second-largest shareholder in Olam International, the Singapore-listed trader. Beijing’s China Investment Corp holds 14.5 per cent of Hong Kong-based Noble Group, the second-largest investor after the trading company’s chairman.

Both Louis Dreyfus Commodities, the agricultural trading house, and Mercuria, a leading oil trader, have also in the past indicated that they may seek strategic investments from sovereign wealth funds in Asia and the Middle East....
...It is unclear over what period of time GIC built up the stake, but the trading company’s shares have been rising steadily since the start of the month, and on Thursday were at $67.83, up 18.4 per cent since the beginning of February....MORE