Daily Briefing: Noble closes London office; ThaiBev non-alcoholic business in the red in 2017

And here's how the government is aiding HDB flat owners who cant sell their units.

From Reuters:

Noble Group is closing down its London oil desk and winding down its Asia oil operations, sources familiar with the matter said, as heavy losses and high debt force what was once Asia’s biggest commodities trader to restructure.

The closures follow the sale of its larger U.S. oil trading business to Vitol, announced in October, and a nine-month loss of some $3 billion reported in November.

Since then, Noble has been winding down its remaining oil trading operations in London and Singapore, with many key traders leaving to join competitors.

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

Owners of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats who are finding it hard to dispose of their units due to the ethnic integration policy (EIP) can ask for an extension of time, revealed Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong in Parliament on Tuesday (9 December).

“For those who are unable to sell their flats, HDB may grant them an extension of time and advise them to be realistic with their asking prices,” said Wong in responding to MP for Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC Zainal Sapari’s question.

“Additionally, HDB has and will continue to exercise flexibility for households of mixed parentage or marriages, or where there are exceptional circumstances.”

Read more here.

From The Motley Fool:

The Non-Alcoholic segment focuses on production and sales of water, ready-to-drink coffee, energy drink, green tea and fruit flavoured drinks. Overall, we can see that this segment continued its loss-making streak in FY2017.

Revenue declined marginally by 1% in FY2017 mainly driven by a decrease in sales volume of some products, despite an increase in sales volume of drinking water and ready-to-drink tea.

Yet, the weaker revenue was offset by cost efficiency from packaging cost, and advertising and promotion expenses. This resulted in gross profit to improve by 3.5% in FY2017 and a turnaround in EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) as opposed to a loss last year.

Read more here.

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