Singapore's Temasek Hires Veteran Goldman Banker
October 06 2016 - 12:30PM
Dow Jones News
Singapore's giant state investment company is tapping a Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. veteran to help its push for more U.S. deals.
John Vaske, whose retirement from Goldman was announcedÂ
Tuesday, will join Temasek in January as its head of North
America.
Temasek has been rearranging responsibilities among some senior
managers after Boon Sim, the firm's former president for the
Americas, left the firm in May. Mr. Sim joined Temasek in 2012 from
Credit Suisse Group AG, where he had been global head of mergers
and acquisitions.
Temasek manages $242 billion for Singapore's government and
focuses on technology and financial-services companies, which
together make up about half its portfolio. It owns stakes in
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., U.S.
pharmaceutical Gilead Sciences Inc. and high-speed trading firm
Virtu Financial Inc.
It has quietly become a player in leveraged buyouts and
less-liquid investments, such as large block stakes in public
companies. Earlier this year, it invested alongside private-equity
firm Silver Lake in backing Dell Inc.'s $67 billion takeover of EMC
Corp.
It also has been bulking up outside of Asia. North America and
Europe account for 27% of its investments, up from 11% in 2013.
The firm's leadership believes there is further room to grow.
Temasek plans to launch a San Francisco office to capitalize on
opportunities in technology investing and grow its U.S. head count
to about 50 from 30 now, people familiar with the matter said.
It has looked to big Wall Street banks in the past to build
expertise in global deal making.
In 2010, it hired Greg Curl, who helped put together an
acquisition spree that helped build Bank of America Corp. Other
senior executives include a former Deutsche Bank AG telecom banker,
a veteran of Morgan Stanley in India and Bank of America's head of
investment banking for southeast Asia.
Mr. Vaske joins that group after a 28-year career at Goldman. A
chemicals banker by trade, he headed the firm's natural-resources
group from 2007 to 2012 and last year became one of three global
co-chairs of M&A.
Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com and Anupreeta Das at
anupreeta.das@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 06, 2016 12:15 ET (16:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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