Since our founding in 1974, when times were turbulent, we have understood that change is constant and crises are inevitable. As the saying goes: “Never waste a crisis.” Each crisis and ensuing transformation taught us valuable lessons, shaping Temasek into the organisation we are today – one that senses, adapts and performs to thrive in an ever-changing world.

In 1974, when Temasek was founded, the world faced the Vietnam War and anti-war demonstrations in the US that took place against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal, leading to the only resignation in history of a US president. Meanwhile, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East led to the Opec oil crisis that contributed to record inflation in Singapore of 30 per cent year on year. Despite the difficult environment, our founding leaders moved ahead boldly and set up Temasek to take over and manage an eclectic collection of 35 companies (valued at $354 million) that the Government had formed for a self-governing, and subsequently, newly independent Singapore. From our founding leaders, we learnt the importance of always doing things with tomorrow in mind. By moving forward decisively, our leaders established Temasek as an independently managed and operated commercial entity that would later evolve into a global investment company.

This decade saw us applying the lessons learnt previously. In 2011, we articulated our second 10-year road map T2020 strategy to become a global investment house. We expanded from Asia to developed markets in the US and Europe as we saw opportunities in innovation and growth happening there. In 2011, the US and Europe accounted for just 11 per cent of exposure, but by the end of the decade, this rose to 32 per cent. Drawing on lessons from multiple market cycles, we refined our investment strategy to focus on four structural trends: digitisation, sustainable living, future of consumption and longer lifespans. These trends, which continue through market cycles and cut across sectors and countries, guide us to build a resilient and forward-looking portfolio. 

The early days taught us that embracing commercial principles drives sustainable growth in an open economy. Statutory boards such as Singtel and PSA were corporatised and privatised and later transferred to Temasek. Singtel evolved from a statutory board to a publicly listed telecommunications leader with a global footprint today. For PSA, Temasek implemented changes that focused the company on its core port operations, carving out non-core assets like cruise centres and real estate holdings (which became Mapletree), enabling it to grow into a leading global port operator. These experiences of partnering our portfolio companies to achieve growth formed the foundation of our portfolio management approach of driving sustainable business outcomes for Temasek and our portfolio companies.

When Ms Ho Ching joined as executive director in April 2002, she began reshaping Temasek’s portfolio, which was then Singapore-centric. In 2002, 94 per cent of it comprised Singapore-based Temasek portfolio companies (TPCs), 4 per cent was in global direct investments (GDIs), and 2 per cent in funds and other instruments. Guided by our first 10-year road map T2010, we focused first on Asia in the 2000s, anticipating its growth after the World Trade Organisation was established in 1995. We invested in banks and telecommunications companies as proxies for rising urbanisation and growing middle-income populations. At the same time, we also supported the globalisation of our portfolio companies and set up asset management companies (AMCs) to galvanise the sector in Singapore. As Asian economies took off despite some crises, so did our investments. From this, we learnt that significant transformation requires courage to try new things and conviction in our strategic vision.

The 2000s saw market turmoil with Sars in 2003 and the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2009. We saw opportunities in these crises, as we could buy high-quality companies at reasonable valuations. Our thesis paid off. We achieved a 10 per cent total shareholder return (TSR) for the decade, growing our portfolio from $77 billion in March 2002 to $193 billion by March 2011. The portfolio composition shifted: The share of Singapore-based TPCs changed from 94 per cent to 56 per cent but grew over $35 billion in absolute terms, while GDIs grew from 4 per cent to 37 per cent. Weathering these crises taught us two fundamental principles that continue to guide us today. First, it is important to focus on quality underlying assets with resilient business models. It was our investments in companies with strong fundamentals that enabled our portfolio to rebound strongly after crises. Second, our long-term view of investing by looking 10 to 20 years ahead, keeps us focused on structural shifts rather than short-term market fluctuations. These principles have enabled Temasek to navigate multiple crises while delivering sustainable returns over the long term.

Focusing on trend-aligned investing led to investments in companies such as Adyen and Alibaba, which showed us the value of identifying trends early and scaling investments as our conviction grows. We saw that digital payments would replace cash early on, and invested $50 million in Netherlands-based payments company Adyen initially. We increased our stake as our confidence in the company grew. Today, Adyen has become an over $60 billion company. Similarly, with China-based tech company Alibaba, we invested small amounts in multiple e-commerce companies, then focused our capital on Alibaba, which ultimately generated billions in returns. This approach helped us navigate a decade of significant market disruption. Despite facing four major challenges – European debt crisis, China stock market sell-off, US-China trade tensions, and Covid-19 – we achieved a 10-year TSR of 7 per cent. TPCs were reduced from 56 per cent of the portfolio to 38 per cent, but still grew in absolute terms by over $36 billion. GDIs rose from 37 per cent to 42 per cent. We also grew our partnerships, funds and asset management companies (PFAs) over the years. Partnerships and funds constitute more than two-thirds of this segment. We have a longstanding portfolio of high-quality fund investments and have deepened strategic partnerships with our key fund managers. Our AMCs make up the remaining one-third of this PFA segment. Since the 2000s, we have set up asset management companies such as Azalea Asset Management, Fullerton Fund Management Company, InnoVen Capital, and SeaTown Holdings which today form part of Seviora Holdings. Our latest AMC is Aranda Principal Strategies, a private credit platform which scales capital solutions for the market. As at March 31, 2025, our AMCs have over $90 billion in assets under management.