Mapletree Industrial Trust has signed an agreement to develop a 'built-to-suit' facility for Equinix Singapore, a 7 storey, high specification property located in One-North. We like this deal as (i) the long lease provides good income visibility for this proposed investment, with annual step ups providing longer term organic growth (ii) high returns of cost of 7.75% (on estimated rent of S$2.0 psf pm) for this property, which will be accretive to distributions and (iii) quality earnings backed by a blue chip tenant - Equinix Singapore is a subsidiary of NASDAQ-listed Equinix Inc. a global interconnection and data centre company. Target price is adjusted slightly higher to S$1.46 (Prev S$ 1.43) after this latest deal has been factored in. Maintain HOLD call, as upside to TP is limited.

Keppel Corp has secured contracts to build four jackup rigs worth US$820m in total from Mexican drilling company, Grupo R. The jackup rigs are scheduled for delivery progressively from 2Q 2015 to 4Q 2015. We expect more orders to come from the Mexican market as PEMEX, the Mexican national oil company has announced investment plans of US$25.3bn for 2013, of which US$20bn will be targeted at upstream activities. It plans to add between eight and 12 offshore platforms to its fleet. These latest contracts bring Keppel's YTD order win to S$1,590m, making up 26.5% of our full year assumption of S$6bn. Maintain BUY, TP: S$13.00.

Nam Cheongannounced the first round of contract wins in 2013, securing US$72m worth of contracts for 2 AHTS and 4 ERRV (Emergency Response and Rescue) vessels. The two AHTS vessels are part of Nam Cheong's build-to-stock series and we estimate 15 of the 19 vessels scheduled to be completed in FY13 have now been sold already. The order for the 4 ERRVs, which will be built on a build-to-order basis, could add further upside to our FY14 numbers. Orderbook now stands at about RM1.3bn. This underpins robust earnings trajectory for the Group in FY13/14. Maintain BUY with TP of S$0.30.

Mermaid Maritimehas secured a 2-yr contract with potential value of approximately US$ 72m to provide drilling and related services using the tender drilling rig 'MTR-2' for the client's offshore oil and gas fields in Indonesia.

NH Ceramics is proposing to acquire BlackGold Asia Resources and BlackGold Energy, part of the BlackGold Group. Through these two companies, the Group has controlling interests in three Indonesian companies that each has coal concessions covering a combined area of approximately 53,000 hectares located in the Riau Province, Island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The purchase consideration of US$150m shall be satisfied via the issue of 3.18bn new shares at an issue price of S$0.059 per share. The Vendors would own an aggregate interest of 91.24% of the enlarged issued and paid-up share capital of the company upon completion.

Hu An Cable is placing 150m new, representing approximately 17.4% of the existing issued share capital, at an issue price of S$0.12 each. The issue price represents a discount of approximately 6.9% to the last weighted average price. The net proceeds of about S$18m will be used as the general working capital of Shenhuan Cable Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company.

First Real Estate Investment Trust is buying two hospitals in Indonesia for a total of $190.4m. The two hospitals, Siloam Hospitals TB Simatupang (SHTS) in South Jakarta and Siloam Hospitals Bali (SHBL), cost $93.1m and $97.3m, respectively. The two hospitals are being bought from PT Lippo Karawaci Tbk, the sponsor of First Reit. The acquisitions will be financed through a mix of a drawdown of committed debt facility and the issuance of new units to the healthcare Reit's sponsor. These two acquisitions bring First Reit's portfolio to 14 properties across three countries - Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services had revised the rating outlook on China-based property developer Yanlord Land Group to stable from negative. S&P expects that Yanlord will maintain its good sales execution and continue to have a cautious appetite toward expansion amid a relatively stable property market over the next 12 months.

Office demand remained healthy in the first quarter of the year as rents stayed competitive, data from property consultancies showed. CBRE said vacancy rates for Singapore offices fell 0.7 percentage points to 5.1%, from 5.8% in the previous quarter. This corresponds with DTZ's research that saw average occupancy rates gaining 0.4 percentage points to 95.4%. CBRE said vacancy rates are the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008, when it was 4.8%.

Source: DBSV