Kevin Lim
Reuters
Great Eastern Holdings, the insurance arm of Singapore’s Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, said on Wednesday it had an indirect exposure of about S$64 million ($43.93 million) to disgraced U.S. investor Bernard Madoff.
“The Great Eastern Group has exposure to some funds of the Fairfield Greenwich Group which has dealings with Bernard Madoff’s investment securities firm,” the Singapore insurer said in a statement.
The loss from the investment, which accounted for less than 1 percent of total asset, would not have any material impact, the insurer added.
Great Eastern, the largest life insurer in Singapore and Malaysia, said about S$7.7 million of the money involved shareholders’ funds while the balance S$56.3 million came from its life insurance fund.
Lion Fairfield Capital Management, a joint venture between Great Eastern’s fund management arm and Fairfield Greenwich, had also sold $45 million worth of funds with exposure to Madoff, the Singapore firm added.
OCBC owns 87 percent of Great Eastern.
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSSIN36577620081217