Simex Founding Chairman Ng Kok Song Inducted Into FIA Futures Hall Of Fame

Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) is pleased to announce that the founding Chairman of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX), Ng Kok Song, has joined the ranks of international futures and options luminaries. He has been inducted into the Futures Industry Association (FIA) Futures Hall of Fame this year.

Mr Ng, who is currently Managing Director & Group Chief Investment Officer of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), was a key member of the team that conceived and expanded the trading of gold futures to include financial futures at the Gold Exchange of Singapore. The Gold Exchange was renamed SIMEX, and Mr Ng became its first Chairman from 1984 to 1987. SIMEX subsequently merged with the Stock Exchange of Singapore in 1999 to form SGX.

Under his leadership, SIMEX created a mutual offset arrangement with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 1984 that enabled round-the-clock trading, and this arrangement continues today. It was also during his tenure that SIMEX launched its Nikkei 225 futures contract in 1986 – the world’s first Nikkei futures contract. The Nikkei continues to be the flagship futures contract in SGX’s comprehensive suite of derivatives product offerings in the Asian time zone.

An excerpt from the citation by the FIA reads, “Ng Kok Song pioneered the establishment of the first financial futures exchange in Asia, SIMEX.”

“Kok Song was a visionary who conceived of SIMEX, and his initiatives have helped to stimulate the establishment of the larger Asian futures industry. He laid the foundation for SIMEX’s success, which has built up into SGX’s position today as the Asian Gateway for derivatives. We are very pleased that the FIA has honoured him with induction into its Futures Hall of Fame,” said Mr Hsieh Fu Hua, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SGX.

Mr Ng is only the second from an Asian exchange to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The first was Mr Ang Swee Tian, former President of SGX, in 2007.

The FIA Futures Hall of Fame was established to honour and give recognition to individuals for their contributions to the futures and options industry. It is a biennial event which saw 55 industry leaders being honoured at its inaugural ceremony in 2005. Past honourees include Alan Greenspan, former US Federal Reserve chairman; Tom Donovan, former Chicago Board of Trade CEO; Michael Jenkins, the first chief executive of the London International Financial Futures Exchange; Leo Melamed, former CME chairman; and Olaf Stenhammar, founder of OMX.

This year, 21 individuals from around the world were inducted. The list includes Sheila C. Bair, US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chairman and former commissioner and acting chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); Philip McBride Johnson, former CFTC chairman; as well as posthumous honours for Milton Friedman, economist and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and Fischer S. Black, a noted economist who helped devise the Black-Scholes mathematical equation to price options.