When the company ceased trading on AIM on Friday 10 October 2014, its share price was valued at 4.17p. In 2011 the shares traded at more than 400p.
In 2010 GIC (formerly Government of Singapore Investment Corporation) was a substantial shareholder in London Mining with 8,485,184 shares or 7.46% of the doomed stock. By 2014, GIC grew this to 9.26% before cutting back slightly to 9.23% in August 2014, and started to trim to 4.21 in October ("GIC Pvt Ltd cuts stake in London Mining to 4.21 pct"). When GIC finally exited London Mining on 10 October, there was a big hole in the balance sheet of about S$50 million by one conservative estimate. The monkey business is yet to be reported in our mainstream media, which chose to splash stories of the Colonel Sanders look-a-like clinking champagne glasses with the Queen of England.
It's a classic repeat of the Bank of America investment strategy, buy high sell low. Temasek Holdings lost US$1 billion in that one deal in 2Q 2009 (188.8 million BOA shares valued at US$13.7 each sold at an average US$8.67 per share).
In August 2014, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam told parliament the GIC is not managing the Special Singapore Government Securities (SSGS) or Central Provident Fund (CPF) monies on their own, but a combined pool of Government funds. Since Hong Lim Park will be off limits for any public discussion of what that really means, we do understand Tharman also said, "GIC has achieved good long-term returns to date. But as investment markets are uncertain and volatile, GIC's returns over shorter periods could be low or even negative."
All we want to hear is what happens when GIC's returns are "low or even negative." And is that when the "Return Our CPF" chant is considered annoying enough to be a chargeable offence, while Yang Yin's "Come on, money, I love you!” is not.