The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has acted to manage the proportion of shoebox units in suburban areas. It is seeking to cap the number of homes in new developments, based on an average unit size of 70 square metres gross floor area.

At the same time, Singapore's planning authority is giving flexibility to developers to include some smaller housing units in their projects to cater to diverse demographic groups and lifestyles. Notably, URA has not stipulated a minimum apartment size.

National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said in his blog yesterday: "Developers are still free to build small apartments if there is demand, but there must be a good mixture of large and small units, in order to meet the URA guidelines."

URA's announcement was generally welcomed in most quarters, though some players say it could dent land prices for smaller en bloc sale sites as developers typically tend to mint a higher proportion of small units on such sites.

From Nov 4, the maximum number of units in non-landed private housing projects outside the Central Area will be capped based on an average area of 70 sq m. This also applies to the residential component of mixed-use developments.

Central Area includes locations such as Raffles Place, Tanjong Pagar, Singapore River, Marina Bay, Orchard and Newton, as well as places such as Beach Road, Ophir Road, Jalan Sultan, Syed Alwi Road, Tekka Lane and Outram Road.

We believe the impact will be minimal on developers. Government Land Sales (GLS) sites tend to be bigger with developers constructing family-friendly sizes. However, developers may now turn away from small landed en-bloc plots as they are unable to turn them into shoebox projects with an average size of 70 sqm, a typical unit size of a HDB 3-room flat.

THAI Beverage is seeking a $3.3 billion five-year term loan to take out the $2.8 billion bridge financing which backed its acquisition of a stake in Fraser & Neave (F&N), IFR Asia reported. ThaiBev recently raised its stake in F&N to 29 per cent -just shy of the 30 per cent mark that will trigger a mandatory offer for the conglomerate. F&N owns 39.7 per cent of Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) and had agreed to sell the full stake to Heineken for $5.4 billion. The deal will be put to a vote by F&N shareholders. There is speculation that ThaiBev may try to block the sale. It earlier bought 22 per cent of F&N, paying $8.88 a share, with an eye on the latter's beer and non-beer businesses.

THE Singapore Exchange's (SGX's) iron ore swaps had a second consecutive record month in August 2012, with 14.88 million tonnes (29,763 lots) cleared. This was 42 per cent higher than the previous record set in July 2012, SGX said. Open interest also touched a new high, surpassing the 10 million (20,961 lots) mark on Aug 30, 2012. On the back of the recent surge in interest in iron ore, the bourse said SGX OTC Iron Ore and FFA Options will be launched on Sept 10, 2012.

GEMS TV Holdings said that it is seeking a suitable candidate for a possible reverse takeover. In a quarterly update, it said that there is no material changes in its financial position or operating results from what was disclosed in its fourth quarter FY2012 results. "At the same time, we are focused on monitoring the progress of MMCG as well as encouraging them to do an initial public offering as soon as market conditions allow," it said.

Source: The Business Times

Source: AmFraser