Five things to know about Temasek's leadership transition

AFTER more than 18 years at Temasek Holdings, executive director and chief executive Ho Ching will retire and step down from the state investor's board on Oct 1.

She will be succeeded on the same date by Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, who joined Temasek in 2010 and held various leadership roles there ever since.

Here are five things to know about the succession announcement that broke on Tuesday morning.

Not the first succession attempt

Former BHP Billiton chief executive officer (CEO) Charles "Chip" Goodyear was appointed to take over Ms Ho's reign in 2009. Mr Goodyear shocked the nation when he decided to renege from his acceptance just six months later, citing "differences regarding certain strategic issues that could not be resolved".

Outgoing CEO among the world's most powerful women

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Also known for being the wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Ms Ho most recently made it to No 30 on Forbes' list of the World's Most Powerful Women 2020. She has consistently been on Forbes' annual list for the past 16 years and notably ranked No 17 in 2018, up 11 spots from the previous year.

An illustrious career

While she has held her chief executive title at Temasek since 2004, Ms Ho first joined the state investor as a director in 2002. Prior to that, she was the founding chairman of Singapore Technologies Engineering from 1997 till 2002. Ms Ho began her career in 1976 with the Defence Engineering Service at the Singapore Ministry of Defence. She subsequently joined the Singapore Technologies group as its director of engineering in 1988, and was its president and CEO from 1997 to 2001.

Temasek's portfolio growth

Under Ms Ho's stewardship, Temasek's net portfolio value has grown to S$306 billion as at end-March 2020, up S$120 billion over the last decade with two-thirds of its underlying exposure in Asia. The majority of its portfolio exposure is now in China, which has grown to account for 29 per cent of net portfolio value in 2020 as opposed to 25 per cent in 2016.

Challenges ahead

Mr Pillay is now faced with the colossal task of taking on the stewardship role of Temasek, particularly in respect of Temasek's constitutional responsibilities to safeguard its own past reserves, as a Fifth Schedule entity. The state investor recently reported just S$8.8 billion in group net profit in 2020 - one of the worst returns since its record-low profit of S$8.4 billion in 2016.