Daily Briefing: Buyer's stamp duty hike slashes property stocks; Singapore and Saudi funds mull French hotel group purchase

And here are three Budget announcements important to investors.

From The Motley Fool:

The Singapore government will raise the goods and services tax by 2 ppt to 9% some time between 2021 and 2025. GST will also be applied to consultancy and marketing services, app and music downloads. Finance minister Heng Swee Kiat said the increase is to let the government have enough to meet the future needs, without burdening future generations.

The GST hike will put inflationary pressure on Singapore. Depending on the price sensitivity of the industry, some businesses may see declining sales and increasing cost. Discretionary goods and services will perhaps be the most affected due to the inflationary pressure of the GST hike.

Having said that, the increase in GST has been long time coming. It remains to be seen what sort of overall economic impact the GST hike will have in the future.

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

The one-percentage-point hike in the top marginal buyer’s stamps duty (BSD) rate for residential properties priced over $1 million saw Singapore property stock decline, with City Developments Ltd. and UOL Group Ltd. registering the biggest drop on the benchmark Straits Times Index, reported Bloomberg.

Singapore’s biggest developer CapitaLand also fell for the first time in a week.

In its budget on Monday, the government raised the stamp duty on the portion of a property’s price over $1m from three percent to four percent. The move comes after house prices increased during the last two quarters, ending a four-year slump.

Read more here.

From Deal Street Asia:

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is in talks to buy a 15% stake in Accor SA’s property business in a transaction that could value the unit at about €6.2b, according to people familiar with the matter.

Public Investment Fund, known as PIF, is buying a stake alongside Singapore’s state-owned GIC Pte, French asset manager Amundi SA and U.S. real estate investment trust Colony NorthStar Inc., the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. The group jointly aims to buy a majority stake in the AccorInvest business, though it wasn’t immediately clear how much PIF’s partners would each hold, they said.

Read more here.

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