The Singapore government and its sovereign wealth fund Temasek will establish a new co-investment fund, starting with SGD1.5 billion (US$1.1 billion) in the first tranche.
Called Anchor Fund @ 65, this fund will support promising high-growth enterprises and market leaders in their public fundraising in the city-state’s public equity market, whether through primary, secondary, or dual listings.
In addition, it will provide pre-IPO financing to catalyse the growth of target enterprises and support them in their journey towards an eventual public listing.
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65 Equity Partners, a wholly-owned investment platform of Temasek, will manage the fund commercially. In addition to anchoring the investee enterprises’ public listings, Anchor Fund @ 65 aims to drive good corporate governance and facilitate shareholder value creation.
Additionally, EDBI, the investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board, intends to establish a new Growth IPO Fund to invest in later-stage enterprises, typically at two or more funding rounds away from a public listing.
Through this fund, EDBI will partner with companies to grow their operations in Singapore and work towards an eventual public listing in Singapore.
Starting with a size of up to SGD500 million (US$370 million), this fund will bridge the gap between EDBI’s typical growth-stage investments and the investments of the Anchor Fund @ 65, strengthening end-to-end access to financing for companies in the Singapore ecosystem.
Lastly, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said that it would enhance the Enhanced Grant for Equity Markets Singapore (GEMS) scheme to expand the scope of support for the Listing grant and Research Talent Development grant.
The GEMS scheme, introduced in February 2019, aims to strengthen Singapore’s equity capital market through a Listing grant, a Research Talent Development grant, and a Research Initiatives grant.
The Listing grant helps issuers defray some of their listing costs. At the same time, the Research Talent Development grant aims to groom equity research talent through the co-funding of hiring expenses and enrich research coverage of Singapore-listed companies.
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On the other hand, the Research Initiatives grant intends to support crowd-sourced initiatives to propel the development of Singapore’s equity research ecosystem.
Last month, Banking major DBS and Temasek signed an agreement to jointly launch EvolutionX Debt Capital, a US$500-million development-stage debt financing platform. Based in Singapore, EvolutionX aims to accelerate growth and nurture the next generation of technology leaders.
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Image Credit: Temasek.
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