How did a tiny island nation, with hardly any natural resources, end up having reserves that's estimated to be well over a trillion US dollars? To many people living in Singapore, that sum is often thought of as the accumulation of government surpluses over the years. But there is so much more to the story. This is the untold account of how Singapore might have lost chunks of its reserves in the early years of independence, if not for a few geniuses unafraid to break a few rules and step on the toes of countries bigger and stronger than Singapore. Since then, there has been successive armies of people working to guard and grow these reserves. They have been so successful, that the tiny nation, now boasts not one, but two state-owned investment entities that are giants among their global peers.

In any given year, the Singapore reserves contribute up to a fifth of government spending. This sum is merely half of the annual returns that come from investing the huge capital sum that makes up the country’s reserves. While a chunk of it is invested in gold, Singapore’s proverbial pot of gold is actually invested in a wide range of assets all across the globe, thanks to an army of people from three entities – each with a slightly different mandate. Through exclusive interviews with top leaders and insiders of ‘Singapore Inc’, we reveal what exactly makes up the republic’s reserves, the unique infrastructure that the city state has built to guard and grow its wealth, the ‘hidden’ role that these reserves play not just for the island’s economy, and answer the million-dollar question: Why are the reserves such a huge secret?