To The Moon

Stocks to Watch

UOB : U11: The lender on Wednesday posted a net profit of S$1.49 billion for its first quarter ended Mar 31, down 1.6 per cent from S$1.51 billion a year earlier. The earnings beat the mean estimate of S$1.43 billion from three analysts polled by LSEG, on the back of UOB’s trading and investment income and higher net fee income. Shares of UOB ended nearly flat at S$30.55 on Tuesday, down 0.03 per cent or S$0.01. 

DBS : D05: The group’s chief executive Piyush Gupta gained S$2.7 million after selling 75,000 of his DBS shares, the group said on Tuesday. The transaction was carried out last Friday at S$35.70 apiece. After the sale, which accounted for about 2.7 per cent of his DBS holdings, Gupta owns 0.095 per cent or over 2.7 million of the bank’s ordinary shares under a trust. Shares of DBS closed 0.3 per cent or S$0.12 higher at S$35.93, before the announcement. 

Olam Group : VC2: The group’s subsidiary Olam Agri on Wednesday raised its ante to A$0.70 per share in its takeover offer for Australia’s Namoi Cotton. This follows Louis Dreyfus’ sweetened takeover offer of A$0.67 per share. Olam said the offer price applies regardless of whether or not Olam obtains a relevant interest in at least 90 per cent of Namoi shares before the end of the offer period. Shares of Olam Group closed flat on Tuesday at S$1.16.

Far East Orchard : O10: The property developer posted S$6.9 million in net profit for the first three months ended March, up 46.8 per cent from S$4.7 million in the year-ago period. The improvement in operating profit came mainly from the group’s purpose-built student accommodation business, the group said on Tuesday. Revenue rose 10.4 per cent to S$50.9 million, from S$46.1 million the year before. Shares of Far East Orchard closed flat at S$1.02, before the announcement. 

Daiwa House Logistics Trust : DHLU: The real estate investment trust’s (Reit) distributable income for the first quarter ended March modestly grew by 0.6 per cent on the year to S$9.2 million. This was mainly due to realised gains from hedges, said the manager on Wednesday. Its net property income (NPI) for the quarter stood at 1.2 billion yen (S$10.5 million), up 4.6 per cent year the year. NPI in Singapore dollar terms was lower by 6.2 per cent on the year due to weaker yen against Singapore dollar. Its counter closed flat at S$0.57 on Tuesday.

SG Local News

UOB Profit Beats Estimates as Wealth Fees Cushion Slower Lending

United Overseas Bank Ltd. first-quarter profit came in above estimates as gains in wealth and card fees cushioned a slight drop in lending income.

Net income, excluding one-off costs, fell 0.7% to S$1.57 billion ($1.2 billion) from a year earlier in the three months ended March 31, Southeast Asia’s third-largest lender said Wednesday. That compares with the S$1.49 billion average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The bank maintained its outlook for lending and fee growth.

UOB, controlled by the billionaire Wee family, is among lenders that stand to benefit as expectations turn to a higher-for-longer global rates environment. That may help balance out the impact of a slowing property market in Singapore, where the bank is based. Rivals have also pointed to better fees from transactions by wealthy clients as stock markets pick up.

Singapore’s MAS Asks DBS to Identify Cause of Outages, ST Says

Singapore’s regulator has asked DBS Group Holdings Ltd. to figure out the root cause of recent disruptions to its internet banking and payment services and deal with it effectively, the Straits Times reported, citing a Monetary Authority of Singapore spokesperson.

DBS online-banking services went down on May 2 after several outages in 2023, days after a six-month ban by the city-state’s central bank over similar glitches ended.

While the lender has made “substantive progress” to address shortcomings from disruptions that occurred last year, the remediation plan by DBS “has not been completed and implementation is still ongoing,” the MAS spokesperson told the local newspaper. MAS is closely monitoring DBS’s progress, they added.

Keppel Infrastructure Plans to Raise Up to $370 Million for Ventura Motors Acquisition

Singapore’s Keppel Infrastructure Trust is considering raising up to S$500 million ($370 million) through a placement and preferential offering, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

KIT is working with financial advisers on a fundraising that could take place as soon as this week, the people said, asking not to be identified as the process is private. Deliberations are ongoing and details may change, the people said.

A spokesperson for KIT said unit holders have approved a potential equity funding round for a proposed acquisition of Australian bus company Ventura Motors Pty Ltd.

Amazon’s AWS Puts Another S$12 Billion into Its Singapore Cloud Infrastructure

AMAZON Web Services (AWS) will commit an extra S$12 billion to its existing Singapore cloud infrastructure over the next four years, doubling its investment in the Republic. The move follows last year’s S$11.5 million injection.

It will also launch a programme to drive the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the country.

The S$12 billion investment will help meet growing customer demand for cloud services, AWS said on the sidelines of the AWS Summit held at Marina Bay Sands on Tuesday (May 7).