ASEAN, Philippine Peso, ABM Investama, Genting, Global Logistic
Properties, Thoresen Thai
U.S. lawmakers have made little
progress toward a compromise to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” according to a top
Senate Democrat who was interviewed over the weekend.
Indications of progress in talks,
or just political willingness to negotiate, were part of the reason why the
market rallied last week.
In the other major worry for the
market, euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund made
their third attempt in as many weeks to agree on releasing emergency aid for
Greece, with policymakers saying a write-down of Greek debt is off the table
for now.
Major indexes ended last week
with gains of 3 to 4 percent, with the Dow above 13,000 and the S&P above
1,400 for the first time since Nov. 6.
Foreign investors have started
rebuilding their China equity portfolios, tempted by low valuations after two
years of market underperformance and signs economic growth may be stabilizing.
They have pumped nearly $4
billion into Chinese equity funds in the past two months alone, trying to get
in early on what they hope will be a sustained rally.
But sentiment looks to be running
ahead of fundamentals. There are clear risk signals for the Chinese market —
including sluggish earnings, rising corporate debt and retail investors looking
for other opportunities — even if the broader economy gathers strength.
Economist and Hedge Fund Manager
Shayne Heffernan of www.livetradingnews.com takes a look at ASEAN, Philippine
Peso, ABM Investama, Genting, Global Logistic Properties, Thoresen Thai
Singapore
Global Logistic Properties Ltd. ,
a warehouse operator majority-owned by a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, is
looking to raise up to $1.5 billion by listing some of its properties in Japan,
in what could be the second-biggest initial public offering in that country
this year, a person with knowledge of the deal said Friday.
The Singapore-listed company,
which is 50.6%-owned by the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., plans to
complete the IPO for its Japanese real-estate investment corporation–also known
as a J-REIT–by the end of this year, subject to market conditions, shareholder
and regulatory approvals, the person said.
The proposed J-REIT IPO, if
successful, would be the second-largest in Japan this year after Japan Airlines
Co.’s (9201.TO) $8.5 billion flotation in September.
GLP’s plan comes amid a bout of
strength in Japan’s property-related stocks, which have outperformed the
broader equities market there. The Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Index is up 27% in
the year to date, compared with the Topix index’s 3.2% rise over the same
period. The Topix real-estate subindex meanwhile has risen 49% in the year to
date.
As part of the deal, GLP plans to
sell 30 of its Japanese properties to the J-REIT, which it will partly own and
manage, for about 209 billion yen ($2.6 billion), the company said in a
Thursday statement.
The company, Asia’s largest
provider of modern logistics facilities, will keep Y100 billion in cash
proceeds mainly for investments in China and Japan, where it operates a $14
billion portfolio that includes 446 warehouses across 36 cities.
Thailand
Thoresen Thai Agencies Public
Company Limited (TTA) has announced today three deals for its 57.14 per cent
owned subsidiary, Mermaid Maritime Public Company Limited (Mermaid). Mermaid is
a Singapore-listed leading provider of subsea and drilling services for the
offshore oil and gas industry.
In a deal concluded last month, a
new joint venture between Mermaid and Zamil Offshore Services Company (Zamil),
the largest offshore and marine services provider in the Middle East, was
awarded a five-year Inspection, Maintenance and Repair (IMR) contract, worth at
least US$530 million over five years (with a two year extension option) by
Saudi Aramco.
Mermaid’s share of revenue from
the contract is expected to be in the range of 60-70 per cent over five years.
The contract calls for full diving services, including air/mixed gas diving,
saturation diving, ROV intervention, inspection, and routine offshore field
repair and maintenance.
Saudi Aramco has contracted for
the deployment of four offshore support vessels and one dedicated saturation
dive support vessel. Mermaid will relocate Mermaid Asiana to Saudi Arabia to
service the contract. In addition, Mermaid and its Middle East-based
subsidiary, Subtech Ltd, will provide up to 110 divers, three remotely operated
vehicles, and scuba replacement packages.
Malaysia
Genting Hong Kong Ltd, an 18.4%
unit of Genting Malaysia Bhd, will start physical works soon on phase one of
its US$1.1bil (RM3.41bil) Resorts World Bayshore , a project that is set to be
three times the size of the existing Resorts World Manila.
“Following the success of Resorts
World Manila, we hope to do the ground-breaking soon for the first phase of
Resorts World Bayshore. We have already signed up Westin as one of the hotels
there,” Genting Hong Kong president David Chua said at a roundtable with
international media recently.
“But we are not going to rush
into it. We will do it our way and not the Macau or Singapore way.”
It is understood that
construction is scheduled to begin next year with a target to finish the first
phase by 2016 involving 16ha and an initial US$550mil (RM1.7bil) investment.
When completed, Resorts World
Bayshore will hold two upscale hotels with 800 rooms, a grand opera that seats
3,000, a mall, and residential towers centred around a casino that is two times
larger than Resorts World Manila’s. Both integrated resorts are 20 minutes
apart.
Resorts World Bayshore forms part
of an ambitious push by the Philippines government and spearheaded by its
Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corp to build a 100ha gambling and leisure
haven to rival Macau and Las Vegas, dubbed Entertainment City.
The development will take up
eight sq km of reclaimed land on Manila Bay.
Four concessions have been
granted to private developers including Genting Hong Kong’s joint venture
company, Travellers International Hotel Group Inc, to provide 5,000 hotel rooms
that can accommodate up to a million tourists annually as well as more than a
million sq m of retail, entertainment and gaming.
The now three-year-old Resorts
World Manila, which houses three hotels, a mall, theater, cinema and 24-hour
casino in the Newport City area near the Philippine capital, was cruise ship
operator Genting Hong Kong’s first land-based attraction.
Genting Hong Kong had partnered
local magnate Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global Inc, one of the Philippines’ largest
conglomerates, to set up the 10ha Resorts World Manila.
Indonesia
ABM Investama, an integrated coal
miner and power company, has snared a new contract with a Singaporean trading
company that will boost its coal sales.
Through its unit Tunas Inti
Abadi, ABM will sell an additional three million metric tons of coal to Avra
Commodities over the next five years, the company said in a statement on
Thursday.
This brings ABM’s total
contracted sales with Avra to 18 million tons through TIA, a subsidiary of
ABM’s coal mining unit Reswara Minergi Hartama.
The contract was signed on
Tuesday, the statement said. The company did not disclose the value of the
contract.
The new coal deal will give ABM
some optimism amid a dire coal market.
“TIA coal sales through its
contract with Avra Commodities confirm that market interest in our coal remains
high. We are optimistic that the coal industry will fully recover soon and will
be accompanied by surges in demand,” Harry Asmar, president director of
Reswara, said in the statement.
“Despite the challenges in the
coal sector at the moment, this new deal is another confirmation of the strong
demand for TIA coal,” said Andi Djajanegara, president director of ABM
Investama.
Previously, TIA signed a contract
with Avra to sell 15 million tons of coal with a level of 4,100 kilocalories
GAR (gross as received) or 5,500 kilocalories ADB (air-dried basis) until 2017.
“TIA coal has high demand in
Asian markets such as China, Thailand, Taiwan and now the Philippines. In
addition to appropriate specifications, TIA coal has a well-protected standard
of quality backed by strong company logistics,” said Bob Kamandanu, president
director of Avra Indonesia.
The new sales contract is in line
with Avra’s commitment to supply 1.5 million tons per year to Huadian Power
International Corporation, China’s third largest and the world’s seventh largest
electrical development company.
Reswara is aiming to sell 5.5
million tons of coal this year and had reached 3.5 million tons by June.
Philippines
The peso closed at its highest
level in 56 months against the dollar on Monday on the back of rising
remittances from overseas Filipinos and improved sentiment on the global
economy following reports of rising consumer spending in the United States.
The local currency closed at its
intraday high of 41 against the greenback, up from 41.05 on Friday. The last
time the peso closed stronger than this rate was on March 7, 2008, when it hit
40.85 against the dollar.
The intraday low settled at
41.025:$1. Volume of trade amounted to $655.09 million, down from $733.7
million last Friday.
Jonathan Ravelas, market
strategist for Banco de Oro, said the growing remittances due to the coming
Christmas holidays helped boost the value of the peso against the dollar.
Ravelas said expectations that
the Philippine economy would post another favorable growth in the third quarter
(official growth figures will be announced Tuesday) after expanding by 6.1
percent in the first semester boosted the appetite for peso-denominated securities.
He added that reports on the
impending merger between Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and Philippine
National Bank (PNB) led to a favorable outlook on the domestic banking sector
and boosted the appetite for publicly listed stocks in the country.
“There has been renewed interest
[among portfolio investors] in the banking sector. The story of consolidation
in the banking industry and optimism on the economic growth performance in the
third quarter aided in higher purchases of stocks,” Ravelas told the Inquirer.
Other market players said the
rise of the peso, which came with the appreciation of other Asian currencies,
came following favorable reports on consumer spending in the United States.
Traders said an increase in consumption in the world’s biggest economy has a
positive impact on export earnings of countries like the Philippines.
According to a report from a
group of US retailers, Americans spent 13 percent more during the last four-day
Thanksgiving weekend compared with that in the same period last year.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
had said that it would continue keeping an exchange rate policy that provided
for the exchange rate to be largely market-determined, but allowed the BSP to
intervene to prevent a sharp and sudden rise or fall of the peso.
The BSP said the extreme
volatility of the exchange rate would be bad for businesses and the economy.
Market players said that were it
not for the central bank’s dollar-buying in the market, the peso could have
appreciated at a much faster rate.
BSP Assistant Governor Ma. Cyd
Tuaño-Amador also said that the BSP would allow the peso to appreciate if such
movement would be fueled largely by foreign direct investments. However, she
said the BSP would exercise its flexibility to intervene in the market if the
appreciation pressure would come from speculative investments.
Yesterday in Asia
Tokyo rose 0.24 percent,
or 22.14 points, to 9,388.94, Sydney gained 0.25 percent, or 11.2 points, to
close at 4,424.2 but Seoul ended 0.15 percent, or 2.82 points, lower at
1,908.51.
Hong Kong closed down
0.24 percent, or 52.17 points, at 21,861.81 while Shanghai slid 0.49 percent,
or 9.92 points, to finish at 2,017.46.
Taipei was up 81.36 points,
or 1.11 percent, at 7,407.37.
Leading smartphone maker HTC
added 4.58 percent to Tw$251.0 while Hon Hai Precision was 0.87 percent higher
at Tw$92.8.
Manila rose 0.49 percent,
or 27.08 points, to close at a record high of 5,579.42.
Philippine Long Distance
Telephone added 0.4 percent to 2,510 pesos and Philippine National Bank
increased 1.9 percent to 85.90 pesos.
Singapore closed 0.51
percent, or 15.22 points, higher at 3,004.50.
Singapore Telecom rose 0.64
percent to finish at Sg$3.16 and property developer CapitaLand ended 0.59
percent higher at Sg$3.43.
Jakarta ended up 0.61
percent, or 26.361 points, at 4,375.169.
Retailer Ramayana Lestari Sentosa
jumped 11.63 percent to 1,440 rupiah and tin firm Timah rose 2.94 percent to
1,400 rupiah.
Kuala Lumpur fell 0.40
percent, or 6.44 points, to end at 1,607.88.
Axiata Group shed 2.0 percent to
5.75 ringgit, while CIMB Group Holdings dropped 1.2 percent to 7.58.
Bangkok gained 0.71 percent,
or 9.15 points, to 1,290.85.
Coal producer Banpu jumped 5.35
percent to 394 baht, while Siam Cement lost 0.77 percent to 387 baht.
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Health care and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN 's area. We are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, if any request, please, contact directly Dr Christian SIODMAK, business strategist, owner and CEO of SBC at christian.siodmak@gmail.com. Many thanks.
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