GIC is charting a new course, but should it throw caution to the wind?

[SINGAPORE] Scrolling through media headlines as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC released its results for FY2025/2026 on Friday (Jul 24), it might be easy to focus on the numbers and miss the actual news.

For the fiscal year ended Mar 31, 2026, GIC reported an annualised rolling 20-year real rate of return – after adjusting for inflation – of 3.4 per cent. This is a 0.4 percentage point decline from the 3.8 per cent recorded in the previous year, and the lowest in six years since FY2019/2020.

Meanwhile, on a nominal basis before adjusting for inflation, its five-year annualised return of 3.6 per cent was GIC’s worst such result since FY2012/2013 – more than a decade ago.