Seatown loses co-CEOs two years after Temasek set up company

Seatown Holdings is losing its co-chief executive officers two years after the global investment company of Singapore’s Temasek Holdings was set up, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Charles Ong, who’s also Temasek’s senior managing director of special projects, will continue in that role after leaving Seatown, the people said yesterday. Nasser Ahmad, co-founder of DiMaio Ahmad Capital LLC, a New York- based asset manager specializing in credit markets, will return to fund management, the people said, asking not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to comment publicly before an announcement.

Ong and Ahmad, who joined Seatown to help build up the firm that was set up in August 2009, have already put in place an investment team, the people said. Seatown, funded with more than $4 billion from Temasek, or 2% of the sovereign investment company’s holdings, has deployed about half of the capital in assets worldwide, the people said.

 

“Seatown will continue and will become a major player with substantial assets to allocate,” said David Cohen, a Singapore-based economist for Action Economics. “This is just a normal evolution.”

 

The succession plan is being completed, the people said. Temasek said in an e-mailed statement yesterday it declined to comment.

 

Seatown, which makes investment decisions independently from Temasek, will pursue deals with institutional co- investors by 2015 and may add retail investors by 2020, Temasek said a year ago.

MORE DIVERSIFIED

While Temasek holds mainly equities and focuses on Asia, Seatown’s investments are more diversified both in terms of geography and assets, the sovereign firm said last year. Temasek, which means sea town in Javanese, is an ancient name of Singapore dating from the 15th century.

 

DiMaio Ahmad, in which Morgan Stanley holds a minority stake, is registered as DA Capital Asia Pte in Singapore, according to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, which regulates businesses in the city-state. New York-based Morgan Stanley bought the stake in DiMaio Ahmad in 2009. Ahmad and Jack DiMaio started the investment firm in 2005.

 

Ong is seconded to Seatown as executive director and chief executive officer, according to the sovereign firm’s website. He previously worked for Deutsche Bank AG in Singapore before joining Temasek in 2002.

 

Temasek said this month the value of its assets climbed 3.8% to a record $193 billion in the year to March 31, and profit more than doubled on increased contributions from its holdings. The Singapore-based company spent more in emerging markets including China, India, Brazil and Mexico, as developing nations led the global economy’s recovery from its worst recession since World War II.

 

“They’re moving to the next phase in their organization,” said Cohen at Action Economics. “Their investment strategy will continue to evolve.”