One of the common and recurrent criticism about Singapore Technologies over the years and it continues is that its R&D wing which is crucial for its business is totally tax payer funded and provides this private sector company an unfair advantage. If you peal the onion, its smarts does come from Defence Science Organisation and its test bed for nearly all its products is the SAF. What luck.
Its the same with Temasek. Over the years tax payers funded Government assets such as power stations, PSA, Changi Airport including all the govt run assets such as DBS, SIA, Singtel, all well run with proven business models were passed on / sold to Temasek Holdings. The transfers and sale are never transparent and actual valuation never revealed. Again like Singapore Technologies, we are talking about a fully loaded base with plenty of buffer.
So are we dealing with an individual who actually built a successful organisation or someone who though might not have been born with silver spoon but surely was given one.
In early 2013, Temasek adopted an interesting strapline that was not based on the Company performance but an individual. It began to repeat that on many occasions especially in prints, reports the portfolio performance since 2002 and did vintage comparison. 2002 is also the year that Ho Ching took over the helm of Temasek.
It shows that the interest of the CEO comes first and not the company. It fails to credit the pioneering leaders who built the core companies that feeds Temasek and Mdm Ho and her kids. Prior to 2002, the company had to operate conservatively. It had many restrictions which Temasek currently does not have. So we are not looking at just apples alone.
And lastly for this post and not for this topic and this thread, name me one company in Temasek that is well regarded after Ho Ching took over that we Singaporeans can readily identify with success. Some will argue that the comparison is not fair as it is an investment fund and not in the business of building companies from scratch. If that is the case, than why is she identified with a string of failing companies.