Daily Briefing: Gold investors flee to Singapore amidst Hong Kong unrest; Property portal 99.co raises $20.8m in Series B round

And waste management firm Blue Planet bought Globecycle Holdings for an undisclosed sum.

From Bloomberg:

Gold dealer firm J. Rotbart & Co., which helps customers buy, store and transport precious metals, says it has seen an increase in demand for gold storage in Singapore from new clients--even when they’re based in Hong Kong or mainland China.

In the last 10 weeks, the breakdown of requests has skewed to around 75% for Singapore and 10% for Hong Kong, according to Joshua Rotbart, who runs the bullion house, which services high net-worth individuals. Previously, requests were plit of about 50-35 to Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively.

“Some clients are afraid of PLA intervention in Hong Kong, or of another closure of the airport, which will make it difficult to move their gold out of the city, as gold is shipped on commercial flights,” noted Rotbart.

Rising violence in Hong Kong is likely to undermine investment there, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, with Singapore a probable beneficiary.

Read more here.

From DealStreetAsia:

Singapore-based property search portal 99.com raised $20.8m (US$15m) in a Series B funding round, according to a company filing from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).

New investors who participated in the funding round include Hong Kong-based Mindworks Ventures and Allianz Strategic Investments, a subsidiary of Germany-based financial services company Allianz. Existing investors Sequoia India, and East Ventures also participated in the investment round.

Meanwhile, Tech In Asia reported that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin completely withdrew his investment from the portal as of the current round.

Read more here. 

From DealStreetAsia:

Singapore’s Blue Planet Environmental Solutions has acquired Globecycle Holding Sdn. Bhd. (Globecycle), a Malaysian company that specializes in handling industrial waste, for an undisclosed sum, according to an announcement.

This acquisition marks Blue Planet’s foray into Malaysia and adds to its portfolio a sustainable solution to manage both hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste.

Founded in 2017, Blue Planet is a sustainable waste management solutions enterprise with operational footprint across Singapore, India, Vietnam and the United Kingdom.

“With this new acquisition, Blue Planet will be able to leverage the expertise of the Globecycle team to provide a way to process industrial waste in an environmentally secure way,” said Madhujeet Chimni, founder and chairman, Blue Planet.

Read more here.