Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singapore government, is freezing pay raises and salaries for an indefinite period starting April, Bloomberg reported.
The company in a February 25 email said the steps and duration were 'determined by market conditions', the report said.
It has also asked senior management to voluntarily take up to a year-long pay cut of 5 percent on their basic salaries and will partially reduce their bonuses. As pert its latest annual report, it has 800 employees spread across its 11 offices.
Money saved from the 'salary-restraint measures' would be donated to staff-volunteer initiatives as an “important demonstration of our ownership mindset, sharing gains and pains alongside our shareholder, and supporting our wider communities,” the publication quoted a spokesperson as saying.
The company, which has heavy investments in China, has seen its interests hit due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Singapore itself has reported over 80 cases of the virus.
Besides this, its investment strategy of buying on structural trends, i.e. consumption patterns, has taken a beating due to the global disruption.
However, this is not the first time the firm has introduced such measures. It took similar steps during the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 and the global financial crisis of 2009, the report noted.
