Pardon my ignorance but I was watching the news on TV when I learnt about GIC for the first time. For those in the same situation as I was, GIC is another investment branch by the government, much like Temasek Holdings. Its initials stand for Government of Singapore Investment Corporation.
According to a Wikipedia entry, Temasek Holdings manages about US$142 billion worth of assets while GIC is estimated to have US$330 billion worth of assets. Why GIC appeared on Japanese news was that they just sold the Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome—home to professional baseball team, Softbank Hawks—to Softbank Corporation for a price of 87 billion yen which comes up to around SGD$1.3 billion. Yes, apparently, we owned the stadium. Before the deal, the baseball stadium has been on lease to the Hawks for an annual fee of approximately 5 billion yen (around SGD$75 million).
A Reuters article states that GIC paid 100 billion yen (approx. SGD$1.5 billion) for the entire complex, which includes the dome, hotel and town mall, and signed a 30-year lease with Softbank for the dome starting in 2005. At SGD$75 million lease a year, the past 7 years would’ve reaped GIC a total of SGD$525 million. Including the amount received from the transfer of ownership, they would’ve received SGD$1.825 billion and made around SGD$325 million while retaining ownership of the remaining of the complex.
Who would’ve thought I’d learn about my country from Japan.
