Stories By: The Business Times (2,163 Articles Found)

Property market must remain stable so young Singaporeans can own homes: DPM

Singapore government to ensure property market is in line with economic fundamentals

OrangeTee & Tie CEO thinks cooling measures unlikely; weighs in on HDB ‘lottery’ effect

KKR looks to Singapore as key investment market for new US$1.7b Asia real estate fund

Developers expected to continue milking positive market conditions to push new projects this year

January 16, 2021

Ascott Residence Trust warns of 60-70% fall in FY2020 DPS on pandemic impact

Proxy restrictions at en bloc sales meetings to take effect from Jan 18: MinLaw

Lian Beng H1 net profit falls 5.2% to S$17.6m

Margin squeeze puts F&B players in a spot over food delivery demand

Moving hawkers up the food chain

In Singapore’s competitive hawker trade, where the unsuccessful throw in the towel and close down within a few years – months, even, names like Fei Siong, Liao Fan Hawker Chan and Li Xin Teochew Fishball Noodles stand out.…

January 23, 2021

Singapore to build ecosystem of venture studios: DPM Heng

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has parked its latest corporate venture campus in Singapore, in part of the city-state’s efforts to “build up an ecosystem of venture studios” for corporate innovation, said DPM Heng at the launch of…

199-year Boat Quay shophouse up for sale for S$27m

A 199-year leasehold conservation shophouse located at 31 South Bridge Road and 88 Circular Road in Boat Quay is up for sale via private treaty at S$27 million, ERA said on Fri. The two-storey asset sits on a…

Retail rents fell 14.7% in 2020; market will remain challenging, say analysts

The decline in retail rents gathered pace in the fourth quarter, taking the full-year drop in URA’s rental index of retail space in the central region to 14.7 per cent. This is in sharp contrast with the increase…

Retail rents fall at faster clip of 5.2% in Q4 but vacancy eases to 8.8%

Rentals of retail space in Singapore’s central region decreased by 5.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year over the previous three months. This is a bigger pace of decline compared with the 4.5 per cent…

Property consultants upbeat about Singapore office market in second half

Property consultants are cautiously optimistic about prospects for the Singapore office market, at least in the second half of this year. “While the first half of 2021 is expected to show the continued grappling of the pandemic, the…

Singapore office rents fall at slower clip of 3.5% q-o-q in Q4, vacancies ease

Rentals of office space in the central region of Singapore fell 3.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 over the previous three months, a smaller rate of decline compared with the 4.5 per cent drop in…

Sabana’s manager wants to leave failed merger behind to look forward for growth

CEO of Sabana Reit manager Donald Han has made it clear that he wants to leave behind the failed merger with ESR-Reit and work on improving the Reit’s portfolio and performance going forward. On Fri, he said: “I…

Frasers Centrepoint Trust reports 96.4% retail portfolio occupancy in Q1 FY21

The manager of Frasers Centrepoint Trust (FCT) said on Thurs that its performance for the final three months of 2020 remained resilient, with retail portfolio occupancy stable at 96.4 per cent. In an exchange filing, it said total…

January 21, 2021

Semi-detached unit sees fierce bidding in year’s first property auction

A semi-detached house in the Siglap area attracted an unusually high number of bids – 33 – at the year’s first public property auction on Wed, an event that also stood out for its high number of mortgagee…

January 21, 2021

S$30m fund launched to accelerate 5G adoption, commercialisation

IMDA on Wed launched a S$30 million fund to accelerate the adoption and commercialisation of 5G solutions. The fund, part of IMDA’s 5G Innovation Programme, will support efforts by enterprises to adopt 5G solutions that address sector challenges…

Asset-heavy property groups may take the privatisation route

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage UK, hotels are suffering, particularly in London, which is missing intl visitors. Unsurprisingly, Singapore-listed GL Limited, whose core business is owning and operating 13 hotels in London, reported a loss for…

Singapore boutique hotels tap buoyant market to offload

Boutique hotel owners are perking up at active property buying in Singapore, as a pandemic crushed the tourism sector but not the will of the well-heeled in scooping up assets. A few such boutique properties have been put…

Did UOL underprice its Clavon launch?

When UOL Group sold 442 units at the Clavon condo along Clementi Ave 1 by the end of the first day of its public launch, Dec 12, it achieved the best launch-day sale volume for a Singapore private…

ESR-Reit DPU falls 16% to 0.84 Singapore cent for Q4

ESR-Reit’s DPU dropped 16 per cent to 0.84 Singapore cent for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2020, from one cent the previous year. “Despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, our core DPU has shown signs of operational stability…

Year’s first public property auction in Singapore includes remnant land

A curious piece of remnant land in Sixth Ave surrounded by state land is up for sale. The owner cannot develop it on its own, and the state land must first be sold, before the plot can be…

Suburban retail S-Reits have smoothest recovery path: Credit Suisse

Retail and hospitality S-Reits were the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and should continue their recovery in 2021, according to Credit Suisse. This comes amid a return to normality for domestic mobility, and a slow improvement for…

January 19, 2021

Property developers facing better year ahead in 2021

A feared slump in the private property market did not quite materialise in 2020; and with the ongoing momentum in the sales of private homes, things may have turned a corner for developers heading into 2021. Despite the…

January 19, 2021

Private home buyers undaunted by rise in unemployment rate last year

Higher unemployment is a symptom of Singapore’s worst recession since its independence – but all those dour numbers have not deterred home buyers here. Besides signalling the lure of cheap debt, the exuberance in the property market today…

January 19, 2021

Ideas for Jurong Lake District include bigger plots, signature events

Property developers, investors and businesses have offered several suggestions for JLD, which is set to provide over 100,000 new jobs and 20,000 new homes when it is fully developed. These ideas include the government selling larger sites “with…

2021 construction demand forecast to recover, but shadow of manpower crunch remains

Total construction demand is projected to recover to between S$23 billion and S$28 billion this year, and industry players are mixed on whether they have the capacity to cope with the rising demand, given manpower issues. Allan Tan,…

Property market must remain stable so young Singaporeans can own homes: DPM

DPM Heng said the government is paying “close attention” to the local real estate market “to ensure that it remains stable”. This is because “we must continue to enable young Singaporeans to own their homes and fulfil their…

Singapore government to ensure property market is in line with economic fundamentals

The Singapore government is monitoring the developments in the property market “very closely”, and will adjust policies if necessary, to maintain a stable and sustainable property market for Singaporeans, said MND Minister Desmond Lee. Speaking at BCA-Redas Built…

OrangeTee & Tie CEO thinks cooling measures unlikely; weighs in on HDB ‘lottery’ effect

Residential property prices in Singapore will probably go on a stable and gradual uptrend, instead of “shooting up”, due to a K-shaped economic recovery. That’s according to OrangeTee & Tie CEO Steven Tan, who does not expect the…

KKR looks to Singapore as key investment market for new US$1.7b Asia real estate fund

Investment firm KKR, which recently closed a US$1.7 billion fund, has set its sights on Singapore as one of the core markets for the fund which is targeting real estate investments in APAC. With the city-state on the…

Developers expected to continue milking positive market conditions to push new projects this year

After topping their 2019 sales performance last year despite the pandemic-induced recession, developers are poised to continue their new project launch momentum this year. JLL Singapore’s senior director of research and consultancy, Ong Teck Hui, noted that for…

January 16, 2021

Ascott Residence Trust warns of 60-70% fall in FY2020 DPS on pandemic impact

Ascott Residence Trust (ART) expects to cut DPS by between 60 per cent and 70 per cent in FY2020, the managers warned on Fri. The projected fall in DPS, from the 7.61 Singapore cents paid out in FY2019,…

Proxy restrictions at en bloc sales meetings to take effect from Jan 18: MinLaw

Starting Jan 18, 2021, amendments to the Second Schedule of the LTSA to restrict the number of owners a proxy can represent at general meetings for en bloc sales will come into force. The move aims to encourage…

Lian Beng H1 net profit falls 5.2% to S$17.6m

The financials of Lian Beng Group took a hit in the first half-year, as Covid-19 restrictions hammered the construction segment. Net profit fell 5.2 per cent y-o-y to S$17.6 million for the six months to Nov 30, 2020,…

Margin squeeze puts F&B players in a spot over food delivery demand

Food delivery looks set to become a more permanent source of revenue for F&B firms in Singapore, but its related costs are also increasing firms’ overall operating costs, putting them in a conundrum. As a result, some operators…