SINGAPORE — Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC plans to deploy an additional $30 billion into hedge funds and is spreading its bets across artificial intelligence, top executives said, while reporting its weakest long-run returns since 2020.
Group Chief Investment Officer Bryan Yeo said the money would be allocated over three years and that the fund’s top executives see opportunities in global macro, quantitative and multi-strategy funds, which span multiple assets and can adjust quickly when conditions change.
“These are three that we believe the go-forward environment is highly conducive on, and these are also the three types of managers that can actively and dynamically manage their risk and pivot ... as the investment landscape continues to evolve with all the uncertainties,” Yeo said, adding that GIC had tripled its hedge fund investments globally over the past decade.
GIC on Friday posted an annualized 20-year real rate of return of 3.4 percent for the period ended March 31, down from 3.8 percent a year earlier. That was its weakest performance since the 2.7 percent reported in 2020, according to its annual report.
GIC does not disclose its assets under management, but the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute estimates GIC manages about $936 billion in assets.
The real return is GIC’s main performance measure. It shows how much the fund earned above global inflation over a rolling 20-year period.
Before inflation, the reserves had tripled. Its annualized nominal return in US dollar terms was 5.6 percent.
Chief Executive Lim Chow Kiat said the result partly reflected GIC’s decision to take on less risk in recent years.
GIC manages part of Singapore’s foreign reserves and aims to protect and increase their purchasing power over the long term.
