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Temasek remains shrouded in mist

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Despite promises to demystify operations of the financial juggernaut, the move on NOL leaves market in the dark

When Ho Ching, the executive director of Singapore's giant state-owned Temasek Holdings gave an address at the island state's Institute of Policy Studies earlier this year, she found herself talking to a very attentive audience.

Not only did Ms Ho use the speech to reveal Temasek's investment record for the first time in 30 years, she also said she was keen to 'demystify' the operations of the secretive holding company that has been used by the Singaporean government to pour as much as S$500 billion (HK$2.25 trillion) into state-affiliated firms since 1974.

Yet the demystification process promised by Ms Ho, who is also the wife of Singapore's incoming prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, appears to have shed little light on Temasek's latest corporate play.

After the Singapore market closed on Tuesday, Temasek announced that it was launching a S$2.8 billion bid for the 70 per cent or so of shares it doesn't already own in Neptune Orient Lines (NOL), the seventh-largest container shipping firm in the world.

Many of the analysts who cover NOL have spent the past few days trying to work out exactly what Temasek hopes to achieve. 'It's difficult to comment because Temasek's policy is complicated and the direction of the transaction is not yet clear,' admitted one Hong Kong-based analyst who covers NOL and other regional shipping stock for a major American investment bank.

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