Singapore said none of the banks in the city-state had received US$3 billion from Goldman Sachs Group Inc related to a bond sale by 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
The comment was made “in response to media queries,” the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a one-line statement yesterday. It did not name any media organizations.
The statement came after the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that Goldman Sachs had wired US$3 billion of proceeds from a bond issue it arranged for 1MDB in 2013 to an account controlled by the fund at the Singapore branch of a small Swiss private bank.
US investigators are trying to determine if Goldman had broken the law when it did not flag what appeared to be a suspicious transaction, in part because funds of that size would typically go to a large global bank, the newspaper said.
The Malaysian firm is at the center of global probes into allegations of money laundering and embezzlement. From Singapore to Switzerland to the US, investigators have been trying to trace whether money might have flowed out of the fund and illegally into personal accounts.
The firm has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Goldman and 1MDB both declined to comment on the Wall Street Journal report.
Meanwhile, the troubled state investment company defended its liquidity position after Moody’s Investors Service withdrew the rating for one of its bonds.
Moody’s on Tuesday said it withdrew the rating on 1MDB Energy Ltd’s 5.99 percent US$1.75 billion debt “for its own business reasons,” according to a statement, pointing to its Web site for its policy on such moves.
In response, the Malaysian state-owned firm issued a statement yesterday, saying: “1MDB reiterates that its liquidity position is strong and the company remains focused on execution of its successful rationalization plan.”
The rating removal came two weeks after 1MDB reiterated to bondholders its commitment to resolving a dispute with Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, International Petroleum Investment Co, which led to a debt default in April.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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