Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government-owned investment company, reported a preliminary 2.2% drop in the value of its portfolio over the fiscal year ended March 31, to S$306 billion ($214.6 billion).
With the U.S. currency appreciating by more than 5% vs. the Singapore dollar over the year, the portfolio's value in dollar terms suffered a sharper decline of more than 7%.
The group's March 31 fiscal-year close coincided with the worst of the global market sell-off driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dilhan Pillay, CEO of Temasek International — the group's investment and operating arm — said in a statement Tuesday. "The market value of our listed assets has risen since the end of March," he said.
Even so, Mr. Pillay said the latest results showed considerable resilience for Temasek's portfolio, with the drop in value — the first in Singapore dollar terms since the fiscal year ended March 2016 — coming in well below the declines experienced by key stock market indexes for Singapore, the Asia ex-Japan region and the world.
Data distributed by Temasek showed declines for the 12 months through March 31 of 18.3% for the MSCI Singapore index, 9% for the MSCI All Country Asia ex-Japan index and 5.8% for the MSCI World index.
The Singapore government's decision to give local companies extra time this year to report their fiscal year results prompted Temasek to push back the release of its own annual report, which is usually unveiled in early July, to September.
"Only when our portfolio companies have reported, can we consolidate and prepare our own group financials," Mr. Pillay said.