Hyflux - Interests to remain muted with yet another top management departure.
U.S. stocks fell after the FED minutes and better-than-estimated ADP employment data fuelled concern stimulus cuts may be accelerated. According to the minutes, Fed officials saw diminishing economic benefits from the central bank's bond buying program. The minutes didn't describe a set schedule for the pace of asset-purchase reductions, although some officials mentioned the need for a "more deterministic path." The ADP employment change for December came in at 238k, better than the 200k expected. Meanwhile, the IMF plans to raise its forecast for global economic growth this year, three months after lowering its prediction, underscoring confidence in the global recovery as the outlook for the U.S. improves. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said yesterday that the revision will take place in 3 weeks.
The FED minutes, ADP employment data and the upcoming global economic growth revision by the IMF underpins our view that stocks that benefit from US-Europe recovery theme as well as the O&G will continue to find interest while SREITs underperform as the yield curve continue to stay steep. Our picks for global recovery exposure are HPH Trust, Venture Corp and Goodpack.
Hyflux's senior executive vice-president and deputy CEO Sam Ong will join SMRT Corporation as its new executive VP and chief financial officer from March 1 this year. Mr Ong's previous roles at Hyflux included stints as its CFO and chief investment officer. With his departure, two middle level managers who have worked closely with Sam will continue to support Hyflux's Business Development team in the Middle East and North Africa region. We believe interests in Hyflux would remain muted particularly with yet another top management departure. Hyflux's ex-CFO Mr Cho Wee Peng left sometime in July 2013. Maintain HOLD; TP: S$1.18.
OCBC has set up a qualified private equity fund to invest in onshore China companies, potentially allowing the bank to raise an onshore renminbi fund. The US$100m fund was created under the Shanghai Qualified Foreign Limited Partner (QFLP) programme, which allows the fund to convert up to US$100m of foreign currency into renminbi and invest that renminbi onshore in domestic Chinese companies over the next five years.
Frasers Centrepoint Limited (FCL), the property arm of the conglomerate Fraser & Neave (F&N), begins trading as a separate entity from the parent company today. The split of FCL from F&N had been done by way of a listing by introduction for FCL and a two-for-one in-specie distribution of FCL shares to F&N shareholders. With the "de-merger", F&N will have a clean break from the property business, and be left with its food and beverage (F&B) and printing and publishing businesses.
Global Logistics Properties (GLP) will start development of two multi-tenant logistics facilities in Greater Tokyo. GLP Sayama Hidaka I and II, expected to be completed in December 2015 and May 2016 respectively, have a total development cost estimated at 18.7 bn yen (S$227m). The two facilities will be located in Saitama Prefecture, Greater Tokyo, and have a combined gross floor area of about 127,000 square metres.
Rex International is divesting its entire 49% interest in Loyz Rex Drilling Services to Loyz Energy, for a consideration of US$4.5m, by way of US$1m in cash and US$3.5m in newly issued shares in the capital of Loyz. The shares will be issued at S$0.3597 per share, being a 5% premium to the volume weighted average price.
Armarda Group proposed to issue 577m new shares at an issue price of S$0.01145 each. The issue price represents a discount of approximately 4.05% discount to the volume weighted average price. The net proceeds of about S$6.3m will be used to finance or fund the Group's corporate actions and/or business opportunities or developments and for working capital purposes.
A consortium of five local construction companies, including two listed ones, has been formed to bid for $60 bn worth of MRT projects. United Singapore Builders Pte Ltd (USB) will tender for projects laid out by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) as outlined in Land Transport Master Plan 2013, said OKP Holdings and Swee Hong. The other members of the group are Ho Lee Construction, Chye Joo Construction and Hwa Seng Builder.
PSA International handled 2.9% more cargo at its port projects around the world in 2013. It handled 61.8m Twentyfoot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers, with the PSA Singapore Terminals contributing 32.2m TEUs and those outside Singapore handling the remaining 29.6m.
Source: DBSV