Daily Briefing: GIC partners with SoftBank and Sequioa Capital to invest $535m in restaurant startup; Industry head forecasts weak semiconductor growth

And here's why First Resources is still a good buy despite low stock price.

From Dealstreet Asia:

GIC, alongside other investors like SoftBank Vision Fund and Sequoia Capital, has invested $535m in San Francisco-based on-demand restaurant delivery startup DoorDash Inc.

In a statement, DoorDash said its Series D fundraising was the largest financing to date by a US restaurant delivery app.

With the investment, SoftBank's Jeffrey Housenbold and GIC's Jeremy Kranz will join Sequoia's Alfred Lin and Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr on DoorDash's board of directors.

Read more here.

From Reuters via Yahoo! Finance:

Singapore's semiconductor output growth in 2018 will probably moderate compared with last year's strong expansion, amid recent signs of softening in global demand for mobile devices, the head of a local semiconductor industry group said on Thursday.

Singapore's trade-reliant economy grew at its fastest pace in three years in 2017 with an expansion of 3.6 percent, getting a boost from a pick-up in global demand for electronics products.

The semiconductor industry gave a large boost to the city state's growth last year, with semiconductor output having surged 48 percent in 2017, according to data from the Economic Development Board.

Read more here.

From The Motley Fool:

First Resources Ltd (SGX: EB5) is an integrated palm oil producer, managing more than 200,000 hectares of oil palm plantations across the Riau, East Kalimantan and West Kalimantan provinces of Indonesia.

At the current price of S$1.77, the company is trading slightly above its 52-week low price of $1.72. This has captured my attention and got me interested in finding out more about the company. In particular, I wanted to understand: Does First Resources have a high-quality business?

This question is important. If First Resources has a high quality business, its low stock price could be an investment opportunity. Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to that question. However, a simple metric, which is the return on invested capital (ROIC), can help shed some light.

Read more here.

The people you want to reach are already in this room.

Every quarter, SBR lands on the desks of the founders, CFOs, and directors running Asia's most consequential companies. Every day, they open our newsletter and read our website. It's a room that took twenty years to build — and it's the one most of our partners are trying to get into.

The good news is that the door is open. We work with companies on thought leadership articles, sponsored content, industry summits across Southeast Asia, regional awards programmes, podcasts, and media placements in print and digital. The shape of the right partnership depends on what you're trying to do, which is why we'd rather start with a conversation than send a rate card.

If you have something this room should know about, tell us. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help, and how.

No rate cards until we understand the brief. It's a better use of everyone's time.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia