If I were running some money at Temasek I would not be pleased that someone in South Korea was blabbing to the media. Not at all. Shades of BYD's CEO saying, back in the day, that Berkshire Hathaway was planning to up their stake in his company.*
From Bloomberg, August 11/12:
South Korean chipmakers rallied as risk appetite returned after last month’s rout and traders weighed a local media report that Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte plans to invest in Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc.
Shares of the chip duo briefly extended gains to more than 8% after Asia Business Daily Temasek Contacts S. Korea to Invest in Samsung, Hynix: Daily that the state fund plans to invest directly in the two chipmakers through its internal investment team, and is mulling timing. Samsung ended the day up 6.7% while SK Hynix rose 5.5%. The benchmark Kospi gained 3.7%.
Temasek said in response to queries from Bloomberg News that it didn’t seek advice from the Korean government on the timing of investments in either SK Hynix or Samsung, and that it first invested in both companies more than two years ago.
The chipmakers saw a brutal selloff in July as doubts grew over the pace of rapid AI infrastructure buildout, leading to an unwinding of leveraged positions. The shares have been rebounding recently, amid growing expectations the companies will bolster shareholder returns with buybacks and more dividends.
“It is a positive confidence signal, but I would not see it as a game changer or the main driver of the Kospi rebound,” said Albert Yong, managing partner at hedge fund Petra Capital Management, referring to the local report. “Samsung and SK Hynix had become technically oversold despite still-strong fundamentals.”....
....MUCH MORE
Now back in July the fund said they would double their AI exposure by 2031, noteworthy not because they named names but because they take a fairly conservative approach (growth-at-a-reasonable-price+some moonshots) to investing:
Temasek’s Net Portfolio Value Grows to S$518 billion, up S$49 billion from Last Year
There are other reports that this would be the big (401 billion USD) fund's first foray into Korea, which seems a bit surprising.**
*August 2009 - China's BYD says Buffett wants to raise stake (BRK.A: 1211.HK)
[this comment did not please Buffet or Munger - Don't be tellin' people to go frontrun our buying]
**Singapore's other SWF, GIC is even more conservative and has $936 billion AUM.
