It has a remaining 5.6% of leases due to be renewed this year.

A large new supply will continue to pressure rents for Keppel REIT. According to CIMB Research, the trust has a remaining 5.6% of leases due to be renewed/reviewed in FY17 and a further 22.5% in FY18.

CIMB noted that expiring rents are around the low $9psf. range.

"We think rents are likely to continue to come under pressure in 1H17 but the sentiment could improve as we move past the wall of incoming new supply in the latter part of 2017," it noted.

CIMB added, "Hence, we think KREIT could continue to experience slightly negative rental reversion this year."

They would be laden with huge capital outlays.

There is no denying that the road to 5G is on. According to DBS Vickers Securities, 5G aims to achieve data transfer rates of 1Gbps, which is usually associated with fibre and other high-capacity wired connections

"However, unlike fibre connections, data throughput in wireless networks are substantially limited by available spectral resources. Competing uses of the available spectrum such as broadcasting, satellite, etc., result in mobile networks occupying only a fraction of that available to isolated fixed line or fibre connections," DBS said.

It explained that to achieve increase data transfer speeds, industry participants have therefore considered implementing high-density small-cell networks and potentially expanding the spectral range beyond 6GHz.

DBS said telcos which perpetuate the network ownership model would be presented with two main challenges. One is that they would be laden with gargantuan capital outlays estimated to be two to three times of the current levels over the next five years.

"Their diminished cash flows might also hamper their ability to obtain financing for these capital expenditures at a feasible cost," it explained.

More so, additional expenditure from operating the 5G equipment would cause a drag on their earnings.
 

One is in Bedford Park.

Logistics facilities provider GLP has acquired 448,000 sqft of distribution facilities for US$33m. The buildings were acquired from institutional owners in two separate transactions and comprise multi-tenant assets 100% leased to new and existing GLP customers. With the addition of these two facilities, GLP now owns over 11m sq ft in the Chicago market.

The first asset is a fully leased 308,000 sqft (29,000 sqm) distribution building in Bedford Park, a desirable in-fill sub-market located near Chicago’s Midway Airport, which is home to major FedEx, UPS and USPS facilities, along with the CSX intermodal.

The second asset is a fully leased 139,000 sqft (13,000 sqm) distribution building in Western Cook County. The location offers immediate access to Chicago’s urban population density with proximity to the I-290, I-294 and I-88 highways leading to excellent labour supply while serving as an ideal choice for “last-mile” delivery to consumers.

Amy Curry, GLP’s Eastern Regional Director, said, “The quality and location of these two facilities complement our Chicago portfolio well. GLP remains on the lookout for opportunistic assets that will strengthen our network of state-of-the-art logistics facilities to better serve customers across the US.”

Currently, GLP’s portfolio in the US comprises 173m sqft. (16m sqm) of modern logistics facilities. GLP is also the largest provider of modern logistics facilities in China, Japan and Brazil.

The program has more than 37,000 investors.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced that the Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) programme has exceeded S$1 billion in outstanding amount with more than 37,000 investors. According to MAS, the programme has appealed to small savers, with 55% of all applications comprising investments of $10,000 and below.

"MAS is encouraged by the response and will continue to raise awareness of SSBs as a safe and flexible way to save for the long term," the authority said.

Since the start of the programme, MAS noted that there is a significant number of investors that have applied for SSBs online through DBS/POSB's Internet Banking portal, besides the ATMs of DBS/POSB, OCBC and UOB.

"We have received requests for online options from the other participating banks, and are pleased to announce that three additional online application channels are now available. Interested investors may now apply for SSBs through OCBC’s and UOB’s Internet Banking portals and OCBC’s mobile application," MAS said.

In response to requests from the public, MAS will provide regular email updates to subscribers, which include information on the latest SSB interest rates.
 

Property prices are now at one of the most affordable levels on record.

Singapore has averted a technical recession, posting 1.8 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the 4Q16, and an overall growth of 1.8% for the year, according to recent estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

But with a subdued economic outlook both globally and in Singapore, as well as expectations of rising interest rates, house prices are under considerable pressure. Real estate consultant JLL said the residential property market is likely to remain stagnant with cooling measures still in place alongside slow economic growth.

Private home prices in Singapore softened further in the last quarter of 2016, for 13 consecutive quarters and reaching their lowest level in six years, as flash estimates from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) showed at the beginning of January.

“Property prices are now at one of the most affordable levels on record,” noted Dr Chua Yang Liang, head of research, Southeast Asia, JLL. “This clearly shows the success of cooling measures such as Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) and the Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) introduced in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Now could be the right time to consider measures that allow the residential market to resume a course for moderate growth and thus avoid a sharper correction down the line.”

Based on JLL estimates in a new report luxury prime properties have corrected on average 18 percent, while mass market prices have softened about 10 percent. Prices for some residential projects, especially those in the prime districts, have corrected between 25 percent and 30 percent since the height of the market in 2011.

“Reducing or removing ABSD for Singaporeans and replacing it with a tax based on the investment period would be a sustainable way to revive demand, bring some activity back into the market and prevent prices falling further,” furthered Dr Chua. “With TDSR in place, it is unlikely that removing ABSD will cause prices to run away. Taking a long-term view, this approach will align property prices with real income growth instead of keeping prices artificially low. If prices become too low relative to affordability, it becomes increasingly difficult to remove cooling measures as prices will rapidly rebound to open market levels.”

According to the report, one of the consequences of the continued measures is that Singaporeans are looking overseas for property investment in countries such as Malaysia, Australia, Japan and the UK. Data from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) indicates the value of overseas property purchases by Singaporeans reached a high of over SGD$2 billion in 2013, although the value softened to SGD$0.4 billion in the first half of 2015.

“Maintaining Singapore’s status as a global city through an open and investment-friendly environment, which includes encouraging investment in residential real estate while at the same time preventing foreign capital from pushing up prices to unaffordable levels, is a delicate balance,” said Dr Chua. “But a thaw to certain elements of the cooling measures could be particularly beneficial for the property market.”

Total returns for both sectors sit at 7.5%.

The past month has seen STI being the best benchmark in Asia. According to SGX MyGateway, the best performers in the past month were industrials and real estate management & development sectors., which gained 7.5% on a capitalisation-weighted total return basis.

Among the 10 largest stocks of the Industrials Sector, the best performers in January were Jardine Strategic Holdings (+11.8%), Sembcorp Industries (+10.5%), Jardine Matheson Holdings (+8.9%) and SATS (+8.9%). Of the 10 stocks, SATS was also the strongest performer of the past 12 months, closely followed by Jardine Strategic Holdings.

Meanwhile, the three best performers in real estate management sector were Global Logistic Properties (+18.2%), City Developments (+11.5%) and CapitaLand (+8.9%). Of the 10 stocks, Global Logistic Properties was also the strongest performer of the past 12 months, followed by Yanlord Land Group.

It inched up by only 0.2% in December.

Banking system data for December reflected a challenging year for Singapore banks.

According to Maybank KimEng, while system loans grew in the month for the first time in 2016, it was partly due to the low base in December 2015.

To recall, loans rose 0.5% YoY in December, the first YoY increase in 2016. The improvement was seen across all sectors, mainly from manufacturing, building & construction, and financial institutions.

Corporate loans grew 0.6% YoY, but consumer sentiment remained weak, as consumer loans rose only 0.2% YoY, the slowest pace since September 2009.

Meanwhile, system deposits grew 4%, with Domestic Banking Unit and Asian Currency Unit deposit trending 6.5% and 1.5% upwards.

They are seeing long-term growth fundamentals in other Asian countries.

The consumer sector started the year right as FTSE Consumer Goods Index and FTSE Consumer Services Index spike 3.9% and 1.1%, respectively, according to OCBC Investment Research.

OCBC noted that consumer companies are looking beyond China and focusing on emerging markets for expansion plans against this backdrop of inexpensive valuations and sound long-term growth fundamentals for Asia.

For instance, Jumbo had entered into its first franchise agreement to bring its brand to Vietnam, and its first Jumbo Seafood outlet is expected to open in Ho Chi Minh City this year.

Meanwhile, QAF has also indicated expansion plans in the Philippines, including setting up of new bread manufacturing plants to cater to the growing demand for bread products in the Philippines. Quoting Euromonitor, OCBC said the group’s Gardenia remains a leading company in baked goods for the Philippines, holding a 13% market share in retail value terms vs. 10% for Goldilocks Bake Shop.

Meanwhile, OCBC pointed out that QAF, as well as Sheng Siong, has had stable dividends and a decent yield of 3-4%.  

It is strengthening its capability in the ICT segment.

Singapore Technologies Engineering announced that its electronics arm is acquiring 51% equity stake in SP Telecommunications (SPTel) from Singapore Power for $54m, which will be subject to a maximum of $60m.

According to OCBC, the transaction will be fully funded by ST Electronics’ internal cash and is expected to close by 2Q17.

SPTel owns, builds and operates communication and infrastructure services in Singapore, and it also owns an extensive network of fibre optic back-haul infrastructure and facilities.

"In our view, this proposed acquisition will strengthen ST Electronics capabilities in Info-Communications Technology (ICT) segment, which is in-line with its strategy to drive growth ahead in this area. We believe this acquisition of ICT-related infrastructure allows ST Electronics to be better poised to provide ICT solutions for enterprise customers and is also in-line with Singapore’s vision to become a smart nation," the firm said.

However, OCBC said this would not have any material impact on the group in the near-term. 

StarHub payTV subscribers dropped 1.5%.

Is Netflix choking the life out of payTV businesses? If the number of users choosing online videos over the usual TV content is anything to go by, the answer may be yes. More than 3 in 4 connected consumers in Singapore are watching online videos on a daily basis, a survey by Kantar TNS revealed. This is slightly higher than the number of viewers watching traditional broadcast TV (71%)-18% of these consumers use paid-for subscription online services such as Netflix.

These figures bring bad news to Singapore's payTV service providers such as Singtel and most especially StarHub, which just lost 11,000 pay TV subscribers. UOB KayHian analyst Jonathan Koh says this has been the telco's fifth consecutive quarter of shrinking numbers, as management shared that a larger-than-usual proportion of its payTV subscriber base completed their contracts. It also faces competition from alternative viewing options, such as over-the-top video services, which are TV streaming options that can be purchased without a cable subscription.

StarHub is obviously badly and directly hurt as its payTV business makes up 18% of its service revenue. DBS analyst Sachin Mittal says,"Since Netflix entered the Singapore market in early 2016, the giant telco already saw its payTV subscribers drop 1.5% QoQ in 1Q16 due to Netflix's entry and it eventually ended its 'TV lite' promotion."

Lacking local content

However, Mittal notes that Netflix does not offer comprehensive local language content and sports content, which is a key driver in the Singapore payTV market. Analysts from RHB express a similar view. They note that whilst there are concerns that Netflix would cannibalise existing payTV services of operators such as StarHub, they expect this to be mitigated by the lack of "local, iconic, and live content on Netflix including sports. Netflix, however, plans to have more localised content. 

It grew 49.4% in the past month.

The strong manufacturing output in December is largely led by the robust electronics sector, according to the latest statistics from EDB Singapore.

The electronics cluster’s output increased 49.4% in December 2016 on a YoY basis. Growth in the cluster was largely supported by the semiconductors segment, which recorded an increase in output of 94.0%. For the whole of 2016, output of the electronics cluster expanded 15.9% compared to 2015

Meanwhile, the output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster grew 44.9%, precision engineering increased 6.1%, chemicals' output rose 4.1%, and general manufacturing grew 2.0%.

It was only the transport engineering cluster which clocked a decline at 10.5%.

And here are 3 secrets to snagging cheaper flights in Singapore.

Singapore has emerged as the seventh most expensive destination in Asia for high-end rental accommodation this year, down from fourth place in 2016. Hong Kong retained its position as Asia’s most expensive location, with monthly rent for an unfurnished three-bedroom apartment hitting US$10,189 (S$14,473) on average. Tokyo and Seoul grabbed the second and third spots respectively, followed by Yokohama, Shanghai and Beijing. Read more here.

Some of the most frequent comments we hear whenever the topic of investing is brought up is how people hate taking risk, or that they are not sure what to invest in, or that they want to invest, but don’t have the time to manage their investments. Regardless of your excuses reasons for not investing, it has to stop soon. To help you with that, we will highlight five types of investments that should fit into your criteria. Not all of them may be suitable, depending on what you comfortable with. At the very least however, one or two should be investments that you can consider. Click here to know five investments in Singapore that caters to every investor's risk profile.

Unless you hate going overseas for holiday breaks, don't we all have this obsession with scoring cheap flights and milking the most out of our money? Especially when the economy isn't looking too glitzy right now, it is all the more important that we spend our money smartly amidst the economic slowdown. All ready to plan your holiday adventures while keeping flight costs as low as you can? We at GET.com have rounded up some tips and tricks of how you can get cheaper flights and discount travel deals in Singapore. Here are three secrets to snagging cheaper flights in Singapore

On the back of strong loans to businesses.

Bank lending in Singapore continued its upward trend in December, with loans growing 2.9% YoY to $617.35b in December, up from $599.8b in the past year. On a month on month basis, loans saw a faster pace of growth in December at1 1.1 %, compared to a slow 0.4% growth in the previous month, latest figures from MAS said.

The strong performance was mainly on the back of the growth in business loans to $367b, a 1.67% increase from the previous month's $360.98b. Of the sectors, only loans to individuals fell, albeit only slightly, to $8.93b from $8.97b. Meanwhile, loans to manufacturers grew to $26.3b as lending to agriculture spiked to $5.8b. Loans in the construction sector ballooned to $121b, general commerce to $63.96b, transport to $21b, business services to $7.9b, and financial institutions to $80.3m.

On the other hand, consumer loans also see an increase to $250.3b, on the back of an increase in housing loans to $192.1b.
 

In Q4, yields from New Zealand more than doubled to $5.2m.

CDL Hospitality Trusts anchored its growth from the inorganic contribution from the UK hotel as well as higher NPI growth from the NZ hotel as a result of higher variable rental income. This came as its Singapore properties suffered fair value losses.

According to OCBC Investment Research, its properties in New Zealand will fuel its growth this year.

"Going forward, CDLHT’s Grand Millennium Auckland is expected to continue to benefit from the strong RevPAR growth (24.9% in NZD terms in 4Q16), especially given the revised lease structure with higher variable income," OCBC said.

To recall, CDLHT's net property income from New Zealand more than doubled to $5.2m.

Meanwhile, OCBC said the trust's Singapore properties will suffer greater RevPAR declines this year with the upcoming 6% supply injection, continued weakness in the corporate segment with O&G firms, and a less packed MICE schedule during an odd-numbered year.

Q4 profit from the segment declined 77%.

Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation is having a series of headaches from its logistics business after recording a slump in operating profit for 4Q16.

Keppel T&T's logistics business remained the major drag as its yields slumped 77% to $0.6m on the back of a weak occupancy rate and high start-up costs arising from its new China projects.

According to UOB KayHian, start-up costs were high for its Tianjin project for which occupancy rate has yet to pick up. Meanwhile, its Lu’an project is expected to only kick-off operations in 1Q17.

"Going forward, the outlook for KPTT’s China logistics business remains challenging but management is optimistic about its Southeast Asia business. Nonetheless, we were previously too early with calling out a bottoming in performance and the recovery of its logistics segment may only take place further down the road," UOB said.  

It will be selling its stake in GE Keppel Energy Services.

Keppel Corporation announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Keppel Infrastructure Holdings, has entered into a sale and purchase agreement to divest its entire 49.99% interest in GE Keppel Energy Services Pte Ltd to GE Singapore Pte. Ltd for a consideration of $24.6m.

The deal was inked through Keppel Infrastructure Services Pte. Ltd, which housed the technical support and Operations & Maintenance (O&M) capabilities within the Keppel Infrastructure group. It operates energy and environmental related infrastructure facilities globally.

GE Keppel is a company incorporated in Singapore and its principal activity is the repair of electrical, mechanical and marine equipment and the repair of power generation equipment. The Purchaser is a member of the General Electric group of companies.

According to the group, the divestment is in line with their strategy to regularly review its asset portfolio to identify capital recycling opportunities. The proceeds from the deal will be used by the group to pursue other opportunities.

The deal is set to be completed in February 2017. 

It's the group's second 660MW unit.

Sembcorp steadily expands its overseas operations with the full commercial operation of its second 660MW power plant in Chongqing, China.

The group said this is its second power plant with such capacity overseas, with the first unit being completed in November last year. More so, the group said the $966.5m power plant is one of the most efficient power plants in Chongqing.

The power plant was developed by a joint-venture deal between a subsidiary of the group and a subsidiary of Chongqing Energy
Investment Group, which is owned by the Chongqing municipal government.

According to OCBC Investment Research, the group's presence now spans 15 provincial regions after having invested in China for over two decades.