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Until 1st July 2011, Dr Tony Tan was Deputy Chairman of GIC, a self-described private company wholly owned by the Government of Singapore. As it says on its web page, GIC manages and invests Singapore’s foreign reserves:
We are a private company wholly owned by the Government of Singapore. It was set up with the sole purpose of managing Singapore’s foreign reserves. The Government, which is represented by the Ministry of Finance in its dealings with GIC, neither directs nor interferes in the company’s investment decisions. It holds the board accountable for the overall portfolio performance.
Therein lies the conflict. As some bloggers and people on the Internet have pointed out, according to a guideline issued by the Singapore Institute of Directors, directors are considered independent only if they have not worked in the company for the past 3 years:
Examples of such relationships, which would deem a director not to be independent, include:
a.a director being employed by the company or any of its related companies for the current or any of the past three financial years;
Given that Tony Tan left GIC less than 2 months ago, how can anyone plausibly consider him independent enough from the standpoint of corporate governance to exercise oversight over the reserves which are invested and managed by his former company?
- http://furrybrowndog.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/a-non-partisan-case-against-tony-tan-as-president/
We are a private company wholly owned by the Government of Singapore. It was set up with the sole purpose of managing Singapore’s foreign reserves. The Government, which is represented by the Ministry of Finance in its dealings with GIC, neither directs nor interferes in the company’s investment decisions. It holds the board accountable for the overall portfolio performance.
Therein lies the conflict. As some bloggers and people on the Internet have pointed out, according to a guideline issued by the Singapore Institute of Directors, directors are considered independent only if they have not worked in the company for the past 3 years:
Examples of such relationships, which would deem a director not to be independent, include:
a.a director being employed by the company or any of its related companies for the current or any of the past three financial years;
Given that Tony Tan left GIC less than 2 months ago, how can anyone plausibly consider him independent enough from the standpoint of corporate governance to exercise oversight over the reserves which are invested and managed by his former company?
- http://furrybrowndog.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/a-non-partisan-case-against-tony-tan-as-president/
