Temasek's First Entry into South Korea: $404.5 Billion in "Long Money"—Why Bet on Storage Chips?
On August 12, a piece of news caused the South Korean stock market to explode.
The KOSPI index surged nearly 5% intraday. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both surged over 8%.
By August 13, KOSPI had rebounded more than 22% from its July 30 low, re-entering a technical bull market.
In just 10 days, he fought his way back from the abyss.
What triggered all this was not the financial report or the Federal Reserve, but the name of an institution—
Temaxi.
Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, which manages approximately $404.5 billion in assets, plans to make its first direct investment in the Korean stock market.
The target is two companies: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
This is not short-term speculation.
This is the world's top "long money," positioning itself before the second half of the AI hardware market begins.
Let's first look at a set of numbers.
In July this year, the South Korean stock market plunged 22%, marking the worst monthly performance since the global financial crisis. Leveraged positions were forcibly liquidated, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in retail wealth.
Foreign capital has seen a net withdrawal of over $100 billion from the Korean stock market this year.
Everyone is running.
Then Temasek arrived.
Moreover, the way it enters is extremely unusual—
Adopt direct investment by insiders rather than outsourcing external asset management companies.
Investment bankers interpret: This reflects Temasek's high confidence in the relevant assessment.
To put it plainly: It's not about giving it a try, it's going all in. It's not about outsourcing to fund companies to buy a bit at random, it's about their own people personally investing heavily in the market.
So what makes Temasek so confident?
Two reasons.
First, it is "filling the gap."
Temasek has already laid out a long strategy in the AI sector—Nvidia, TSMC, ASML, OpenAI, Anthropic.
But memory chips have always been the missing piece in its semiconductor portfolio.
Samsung and SK Hynix are just this piece of the puzzle.
Second, it believes that memory chips are seriously undervalued.
Temasek's assessment is that within the overall AI value chain, the memory semiconductor sector is the most undervalued.
Note that the stock prices of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have risen more than 880% from last year's low.
It has risen nearly ninefold, yet Temasek still admits it is undervalued.
It's like at an auction, when something has already skyrocketed from 1 million to 10 million, and suddenly someone walks in and says, "If it goes up, I'll bid 20 million." ”
You're either crazy or seeing things others haven't.
What did Temasek see?
Time dimension.
At a briefing in July this year, the institution clearly stated that by 2031, AI-related investments will increase from the current 6% to a maximum of 15%.
In five years, it more than doubled.
This is not a quarterly allocation; it is a strategic shift.
Temasek has defined AI semiconductors as "a long-term growth sector driving industrial structural transformation, rather than a short-term boom."
While others panicked and sold off due to "overheated AI investment," it was increasing its positions against the trend.
There's another detail that, upon closer thought, is truly chilling.
Temasek told Bloomberg that it had already invested in these two companies for the first time two years ago.
Two years ago.
At that time, ChatGPT hadn't yet become popular, HBM hadn't been discussed, and memory chips were at the bottom of the cycle.
It's already inside.
Now, when the market is panicking, leveraged liquidations, and foreign capital withdrawing, it not only hasn't left, it has increased its positions.
This isn't bottom-fishing. It's the closing net after two years of planning.
Final question:
The stock prices of Samsung and SK Hynix have already risen nearly ninefold. Is Temasek buying at the top now?
Samsung and SK Hynix's forward P/E ratios are only 4.2 and 3.6 times respectively, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index overall exceeds 21 times.
Global chip stocks average 21 times, while these two companies are less than 4 times.
You ask, who's at the top of the mountain? Who's at the foot of the mountain?
When a fund managing $400 billion starts to build positions, it's not about speculating on a rebound, but about grabbing positions.
$BTC$SKHYNIX$SAMSUNG #芯片股领涨, Korean stocks rebound over 22% in ten days
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