"While not the direct sovereign wealth fund participation many market participants were hoping for, it is nevertheless a strong signal in the government’s commitment," states Wickramasinghe in his Feb 23 note, without directly naming GIC which had been suggested by many market commentators to be the one funding this revival.
Thilan Wickramasinghe, head of research at Maybank Securities, calls the first set of recommendations by the MAS market review group a "shot in the arm".
Among a whole raft of measures, the key was a $5 billion fund that MAS will allocate to various fund managers to invest in local equities outside the component stocks of the Straits Times Index - ie, the smaller caps.
