GIC Sold Olympus Shares on ‘First Suspicion’

Government of Singapore Investmentugg boots on sale ugg boots on sale ugg boots on sale Corp., manager of more than $100 billion of the city’s reserves, sold almost all of its 2 percent stake in Olympus Corp. (7733), the camera maker that said it hid losses with inflated fees.
GIC now only has an “insignificant holding” in Olympus under a portfolio managed by an external fund manager after the sale, the fund said in an e-mailed statement on Nov. 12, without elaborating on the financial effecugg boots on sale ugg boots on sale ugg boots on salet of the divestment or plans for its remaining shares.
“Ever since the story broke and the unraveling of the extent of the fraud and cover-up of the company, there has always been increasing risk of the viability of the company,” said Song Seng Wun, a Singapore-based economist at CIMB Research Pte. “Rather than take the risk, GIC’s management may have decided to bite the bullet.”
GIC, which said earlier this year risks andugg boots on sale ugg boots on sale ugg boots on sale market volatility may increase, faced 6.7 billion Swiss francs ($7.4 billion) of paper losses two months ago as the biggest investor in UBS AG after the Swiss bank announced a $2.3 billion unauthorized trading loss that led to the resignation of its chief executive officer. The state-owned investor, ranked the world’s sixth largest by Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, also had unrealized losses on its investment in Citigroup Inc.