In my recent Astrea IV Bond article, I had a theory that MAS/Temasek was trying to expand the retail bond market in Singapore, with SSBs being the first limb and Astrea’s PE bonds being the second. Nikko AM’s latest corporate bond ETF, the “Nikko AM SGD Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF”, sure looks like the third limb in this broader strategy.

A recent Business Times article seems to confirm this point as well:

The ETF manager, Nikko Asset Management Asia, has an AUM (assets under management) target of S$50 million for the fund. The Business Times understands that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is a seed investor.

Nikko AM declined to confirm this, but Eleanor Seet, its president and head of Asia-ex-Japan, told BT last Friday: “This is very much in line with a lot of the strategic initiatives that the MAS has always had in terms of