Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Great Singapore Fire-Sale Part II

One month ago, I blogged on The Great Singapore Fire-Sale. One month later, and the fire-sale is going full-stream ahead.

Singapore chip maker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd has been losing money steadly for the past few years, so they are up for the chop. Temasek, who owns about 59% of Chartered, has to sell to go around the $1.2 billion bad buys they made due to the sub-prime crisis and I guess selling a loss-making company make sense. Yes, I know Chartered said that this is just strategic investments for a new factory, but be serious, does anyone believe that?

Still, it’s good news for Chartered’s investors as the stock climbed once the market got the news. SingaporePools should give some odds on what’s next on Temasek’s sell list, I believe there will be a lot of interest in that bet.

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