Citigroup 5, Singaporeans 1.
That would be the scoreline if this were a game of soccer.
Singaporeans will be getting 1.8 billion Singapore dollars ($1.27 billion)in education grants, Medisave top-ups, income tax rebates and other benefits under a budget surplus sharing package
Citigroup is getting more than five times as much from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), which has agreed to invest $6.9 billion for a 4 percent stake in the troubled banking giant.
Singapore has a budget surplus of 6.4 billion Singapore dollars. Not that the budget has anything to do with the Citigroup deal. GIC is a private company managing Singapore’s foreign reserves. It has also decided to invest 11 billion Swiss francs ($10 billion) in UBS and become the Swiss bank’s biggest shareholder with a 9 percent stake. UBS announced yesterday it had lost $18 billion in the US subprime mortgage crisis.
The Finance Ministry, which prepares the budget, has its own sovereign fund, Temasek Holdings. Temasek has decided to invest $4.4 billion and take a 9.9 percent stake in the ailing Wall Street firm, Merrill Lynch.
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