Wall Street stocks won solid gains on Tuesday as markets anticipated the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden while Mr Biden's Treasury secretary nominee reiterated a call for aggressive stimulus spending. Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve Chair nominated to lead economic policy, during her Senate confirmation hearing called for Washington to "act big" to support the coronavirus-ravaged US economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4 per cent to finish at 30,930.52. The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.8 per cent to end at 3,798.91, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.5 per cent to 13,197.18.

A Wholly-Owned subsidiary of Riverstone Holdings has acquired a piece of industrial land in Malaysia for a total consideration of RM5 million (S$1.6 million) in a bid to expand the group's production capacity for cleanroom gloves and other operations. The land acquired by the subsidiary, Riverstone Resources, spans about 6,741 square metres, and is in the Bukit Beruntung industrial area in Selangor, Malaysia.

Entities of troubled Eagle Hospitality Trust (EHT) on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Documents lodged showed that as many as 27 entities within the EHT stable filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. These debtors have also moved for the joint administration of these cases. Filings for EHT US1, Eagle Hospitality Trust S2 and Eagle Hospitality Trust S1 all listed estimated liabilities of US$500 million to US$1 billion.

The trustee-manager of Keppel Infrastructure Trust (KIT) announced on Tuesday that KIT has entered into an unsecured S$300 million facility agreement with various lenders to partially finance its proposed acquisition, Philippine Tank Storage International (PTSI). PTSI owns the largest petroleum products import storage facility in the Philippines. The trustee-manager had announced last month that it had, together with its Philippine partner Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), entered into a conditional agreement to fully acquire PTSI.

ARA Logos Logistics Trust said in an update of its preferential offering that it has received valid acceptances and excess applications for a total of 205.4 million preferential offering units at the close of the offering on Jan 15. This represents about 225.4 per cent of the total number of preferential offering units available, said ARA in a bourse filing on Tuesday.

Frasers Hospitality Trust (FHT) is banking on its properties in countries with a predominant domestic travel market to recover faster than the others. This includes properties in Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom, said FHT, a stapled group comprising Frasers Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust and Frasers Hospitality Business Trust. "While demand for accommodation is likely to be constrained by health concerns and the level of post-Covid-19 austerity, pent-up travel demand seems most evident within the leisure segment," said FHT in response to shareholders' questions ahead of its annual general meeting to be held on Wednesday.

Source: SGX Masnet, The Business Times, Bloomberg, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, PSR