Daily Briefing: GIC to sell stake in Acuris to ION Investment Group; Rent upswing brings cheer to residential market in Q1

And UOB snatches Deutsche Bank’s global DevOps lead for wealth management.

From Reuters:

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and private equity firm BC Partners will sell its stake in financial media and data firm Acuris to Irish software firm ION Investment Group for an undisclosed amount.

Moody’s was one of the strongest contenders to win the more than US$1.30b deal, Reuters reported last month, after credit rating agency Fitch pulled out of the bidding for the London-based company which owns the Mergermarket and Debtwire brands.

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From iCompareLoan:

There is some good news from the rental market brought some relief to residential market, according to ListSIR Research. The rental index rose by 1% QoQ in Q1 2019, after a fall of 1.0% in Q4 2018. The uptick was jointly contributed by a 0.2% growth in the rents of landed homes and a 1.1% growth in non-landed homes in Q1 2019. Both price indices recorded a QoQ decline of 2.1% and 0.8% respectively in Q4 2018.

By locality, the OCR rental index showed the largest rise of 1.7% QoQ, followed by a 1.6% rise in the CCR rental index. This could be attributed to a shrinking supply of rental apartments following the sale of several apartment developments in these locations for the purpose of redevelopment. Rents were given a boost as supply tightened. On the other hand, the RCR rental index fell for the second consecutive quarter by 0.3% QoQ. Pressure on rents could have come from fresh supply in newly completed condos in H2 2018.

Going forward, the reducing trend of vacant units is likely to continue as fewer new homes will be completed in 2019 (8,926 units) and 2020 (4,231 units), said the report. Adding, vacant units would rise again as projected completions will rise steeply with the bumper of new projects under construction from 2017 onwards.

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From eFinancial Careers:

UOB has hired Sathiyaseelan Murugaiayh to head up one of its most important technology teams, DevOps CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery). Murugaiayh joined UOB earlier this month from Deutsche Bank, where he had spent almost two years as global DevOps lead for wealth management.

Technologists who specialise in DevOps, a practice that makes software development faster and more efficient, are in high demand in Singapore. “And Singapore is also in relatively short supply of DevOps engineers, so salaries are going up,” Adam Davies, lead IT recruiter at iKas International, told us earlier this year.

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