Temasek, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, Wednesday announced the launch of a co-investment vehicle to provide opportunities for like-minded institutional investors and, eventually, Singapore retail investors as well, to benefit from Temasek's private equity investment activities.
Temasek said in a news release that it launched its Astrea II portfolio, made up of a portion of Temasek's “broadly diversified holdings in 36 private equity funds … balanced across vintages, geographies and sectors.”
Temasek is the largest single shareholder in Astrea II, with a 38% stake, alongside six “like-minded long term institutional co-investors,” the news release said.
It named private investment company and secondary fund manager Ardian as one of the six, which also serves as the general partner and manager of Astrea II. A London-based spokesman for Ardian couldn't immediately comment.
A Temasek spokesman declined to name the other five co-investment partners in Astrea II, or provide any details regarding the size of the private equity portfolio.
For its fiscal year ended March 31, Temasek's total portfolio was valued at S$215 billion (US$172 billion), with roughly 10% in third-party managed funds, according to the news release.
Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, head of Temasek's enterprise development group, said in the release, that the sovereign wealth fund had launched Astrea I in 2006 to help “broaden our co-investor base, starting with institutional investors.”
Temasek “will remain actively engaged with the (private equity) funds that have been injected into the Astrea II platform” and continue to manage “a large and growing portfolio of private equity fund interests” outside of that platform, Mr. Sandrasegara said.
A longer-term goal is to give retail investors in Singapore the opportunity to invest alongside Temasek, and that a first step could be to issue Temasek bonds for such investors, the release said.