Daily Briefing: Perennial Real Estate says AXA Tower shareholder loan amounts to $364.7m; Spark Systems raises $21.39m in series BB funding

And Temasek joins Facebook’s global payments system Libra.

From Deal Street Asia:

Perennial Real Estate disclosed the shareholders’ loan for the AXA Tower property set to be partially sold to Alibaba Group was $364.7m

Earlier this month, a consortium led by Singapore’s Perennial Real Estate announced it agreed to sell 50% stake in AXA Tower office building to a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. The deal values AXA Tower at $1.68b.

The Perennial Real Estate-led consortium, called Perennial Shenton Investors, includes Singapore Press Holdings, HPRY Holdings, and Piermont Holdings.

The consortium will transfer its 50% stake in Perennial Shenton Holding (PSHPL), which owns AXA Tower, and the 50% of the loan outstanding to a new entity, PRE 13 or Perennial Newco.

Read more here.

From e27:

Online FX trading platform Spark Systems raised $21.39m (US$15m) in a “series BB” funding round from a host of new and existing investors, including Citi, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and Malaysia’s OSK Ventures, according to an announcement.

Vickers Ventures, Dymon Asia Ventures, Dymon Asia Capital, Jubilee Capital, and FengHe also returned to invest in the new round.

The company said that the funding would be used to enhance its current platform, develop analytics, advance its team training and build rapid modules that can onboard clients quickly.

Spark Systems also added that it intends to gradually expand into major financial centres of New York and London and develop a marketplace for G10/emerging economies currencies with a low latency trade matching data centre, which will be located in Singapore.

The firm has previously closed a funding round about four years ago. This brings its total funding raised to date to over $31.38m (US$22m)

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia:

Temasek Holdings has joined the Facebook-backed Libra project seeking to create a worldwide digital payments network, according to the Swiss-based Libra Association.

Temasek was among three new members announced for the association, including the cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm and the private equity group Slow Ventures, both based in California.

Libra, a high-profile project launched by social network giant Facebook, is tentatively scheduled to launch this year but has been battered by severe criticism from some of the world's most influential financial authorities.

In its latest update, the association said it is seeking approval for digital coins in individual currencies, revamping its cryptocurrency initiative in a move aimed at minimizing disruption to the global monetary system.

The association includes a number of non-profit and e-commerce firms but has lost some high-profile initial members including Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe, and PayPal.

Read more here.

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