Stocks are set to kick off the week at record highs, with investors focusing on the economic recovery despite mounting concerns about new Covid-19 variants. Futures pointed higher in Japan and Australia after U.S. stocks ended the week at all-time peaks, with the S&P 500 Index capping its fourth straight weekly advance. After two weeks of relentless losses, China Huarong Asset Management bonds rallied after China’s financial regulator said the bad debt manager had ample liquidity.

SG

Grab Holdings, South-east Asia's ride-hailing to delivery giant, is considering a secondary listing in its home market of Singapore after completing a Nasdaq listing via a US$40 billion SPAC merger, three sources familiar with the matter said. Listing on Singapore Exchange (SGX) would enable Grab to have an investor base close to where its regional business is based, the people said, potentially offering its customers, drivers and merchant partners easier access to trade its shares.

Econ Healthcare (Asia) received applications from investors for 86.9 times the number of shares available in the public portion of its initial public offering (IPO), it said on Friday. With 1.8 million shares available to the public for subscription, it received 3,371 valid applications for around 156.5 million shares, with application monies received amounting to some S$43.8 million.

Entities of GIC and Hong Kong-listed ESR Cayman have entered into an agreement on Saturday with funds managed by Blackstone to acquire a property portfolio in Australia for A$3.8 billion (S$4.1 billion). In an exchange filing on Sunday, ESR Cayman said the property portfolio is the "largest logistics portfolio ever put to market in Australia". Subject to merger clearance approval in South Korea and China, Bidco - an entity 20 per cent owned by ESR Cayman and 80 per cent owned by GIC (Realty) - will enter into unit sale agreements with the Blackstone funds for the acquisition of the property portfolio.

DBS Group Holdings (SGX: D05) will phase out thermal coal exposure by 2039, making it the first Singapore bank to commit to ceasing financing in this area. Singapore's largest bank announced on Friday that it will stop onboarding new customers who derive more than a quarter of their revenue from thermal coal with immediate effect.

Keppel Corporation (SGX:BN4) said on Friday that its wholly-owned subsidiary Keppel Shipyard is in advanced discussions with Petrobras for a contract to build floating production storage and offloading vessel for the Buzios field off Brazil. The company's exchange filing was in response to an article on Upstream Daily News titled "$4.6bn deals near Petrobras seals price cuts from two Asian yards for Buzios floater pair".

US

Facebook (US: FB) will announce a series of products under the umbrella of "social audio" on Monday, including its take on audio-chat app Clubhouse and a push into podcast discovery and distribution, Recode reported on Sunday. These plans include an audio version of Rooms, a video-conferencing product Facebook launched a year ago.

Two men were killed in a crash in Texas while riding in a Tesla (US:TSLA) car that police said almost certainly had no one behind the wheel, US media reported Sunday. The vehicle was driving at high-speed late Saturday north of Houston when it slammed into a tree and burst into flames, the Wall Street Journal reported, quoting Harris County constable Mark Herman.

Pfizer (US:PFE) chief executive Albert Bourla has agreed to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s request to supply additional doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, the vaccine minister of Japan said on Sunday (April 18). “They have agreed on the essentials of the matter,” Japanese vaccination programme chief Taro Kono said during a live interview on Fuji TV, adding that further details including the shipment schedule will be discussed.

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