Singapore's Temasek Cuts Salaries for FTX Investment Staff [Advance Cash ]

Singapore'S Temasek Cuts Salaries For Ftx Investment Staff

May 29 (Reuters) - Singaporean state investor Temasek Holdings (TEM.UL) said on Monday it had cut pay for the team and senior management who recommended its investment in the crypto exchange -FTX currency, now bankrupt.

“While there was no fault on the part of the investment team in making its investment recommendation, the investment team and senior management, who are ultimately responsible for the investment decisions made, assumed collective responsibility and had their compensation reduced," Temasek Chairman Lim Boon Heng said in a statement. statement posted on Temasek's website on Monday.

He did not specify the amount of the reduced compensation.

The move comes about six months after Temasek launched an internal review of its investment in FTX, which resulted in a $275 million writedown.

Temasek had said his investment cost in FTX was 0.09% of his portfolio's net worth of 403 billion Singapore dollars ($304 billion) as of March 31, 2022, and that he currently had no direct exposure to cryptocurrencies.

Temasek also said last year that he conducted “thorough due diligence” on FTX, with its audited financials then “showing it was profitable.”

FTX's other backers, such as SoftBank Group Corp's Vision Fund (9984.T) and Sequoia Capital, had also cut their investment to zero after FTX, founded by Sam Bankman Fried, filed for bankruptcy in the United States last year.

"With FTX, as alleged by prosecutors and as admitted by key executives of FTX and its subsidiaries, there was fraudulent conduct intentionally concealed from investors, including Temasek," Lim said in the statement. Monday. "Nevertheless, we are disappointed with the outcome of our investment and the negative impact on our reputation."

($1 = 1.3245 Singapore dollars)

Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Lincoln Feast.

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Yantoultra Ngui

Thomson Reuters

Yantoultra Ngui is a Southeast Asia Transactions Correspondent with Reuters in Singapore, covering mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions in a region that is rapidly emerging as a popular destination for early-stage investors, unicorns and IPOs. He was previously a reporter at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. He was notably part of the WSJ team that covered the financial scandal of the Malaysian state fund 1MDB. Yantoultra obtained an MBA in Finance from Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2010.