Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, made net investments of S$4 billion ($3.16 billion) in its energy and resources portfolio in the year to March 31, the fund said Thursday.
The new investments included acquiring an additional 5% stake in Spanish energy group Repsol plus investments in Kunlun Energy, the listed natural gas subsidiary of Chinese state-controlled company PetroChina and in US-based LNG terminal operator Cheniere Energy.
Nevertheless, energy and resources accounted for an unchanged 6% of Temasek's investment portfolio in 2012-13 compared with the previous year.
Temasek bought an additional 5.04% of treasury shares in Repsol in March, taking its stake in the Spanish oil group to 6.3%. The 5% acquisition cost Eur1.036 billion, or S$1.68 billion at the March 4 2013 exchange rate.
In April 2012 the state holding together with private equity firm RRJ Capital bought $600 million worth of Kunlun shares in the Chinese group's April $1.3 billion Hong Kong share listing.
Temasek's investment in Cheniere -- which is converting a planned 18 million mt/year LNG import terminal in Louisiana into an export facility -- was also made with RRJ Capital. The two spent $468 million for a combined 19% stake in the US company which has secured the first LNG export permit in the US excluding Alaska.
Since the end of its financial year Temasek has announced the establishment of Pavilion Energy with an initial capital commitment of S$1 billion. Temasek said the new company will invest in clean energy in Asia "especially around the LNG supply chain."
That could include LNG trading, investing with international oil and gas companies to develop upstream LNG projects, building LNG storage and regasification terminals and investing in LNG shipping, the company's newly-appointed boss Seah Moon Ming said at the time.
Temasek also said Pavilion should be operational by September.
Overall, the net portfolio value of the Singaporean fund's investments rose 8.6% to a record S$215 billion in the year to March 31.
The fund invested S$20 billion in the year, down from S$22 billion the previous year, and made S$13 billion of divestments, down from S$15 billion in 2011-2012.
As of March 31, over half of the sovereign wealth fund's money was invested in Singapore (30%) and China (23%), and almost three quarters (71%) in Asia.
Temasek's exposure to North America and Europe grew by one percentage point to 12% in the 12-month period, while the fund's Australia and New Zealand exposure declined from 14% to 13% and its Latin America exposure increased from 1% to 2% in the year to March 31. The fund's exposure to Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia was unchanged at 2%.
The Singapore investment fund, which was set up in 1974, has invested heavily in financial services groups such Banco Santander, China Construction Bank and Standard Chartered, but has also made investments in a wide range of other companies including transport, real estate and telecommunications firms.
