I AM glad about the increased transparency shown in revealing Temasek Holdings' performance, though I am disappointed that the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation's (GIC) performance was not discussed in yesterday's report, 'Temasek portfolio down 31%'.

Naturally, increased transparency will attract criticism when there are losses, but lack of transparency will draw different criticisms. However, I am somewhat bemused by comments that 'Temasek and GIC have not performed as badly as other market indexes'.

Yes, when the financial markets are weak, everyone expects to lose money, and one measure of performance is 'who loses less'.

But it is not the only measure. We must also be certain that we are using the right benchmarks for comparison.

I am not sure comparisons with the Morgan Stanley Capital International Index, for example, are appropriate or even relevant.

Let us also be sure we are not merely content with patting ourselves on the back for losing less money, percentage-wise, than some index that may or may not be relevant.

As with most other commercially run corporations, I would like answers to questions such as:

• What are Temasek and GIC doing to evaluate how these losses occurred?
• Are there any lessons that have been learnt from these losses?
• Could any of these losses have been avoided?
• Are there any changes that need to be made to ensure Temasek and GIC are better prepared in future?

Let us make sure the message to Temasek and GIC is holistic, and not one that says only, 'Well done for losing less money', because $58 billion is an enormous amount to lose.

Samuel Owen

This article was first published in The Straits Times on February 12, 2009.