SINGAPORE (REUTERS) – Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp plans to close its crude and fuel oil trading desks in Singapore at the end of March and will relocate the trading functions to its Tokyo headquarters, a company spokesman said on Thursday (Jan 14). The company will also exit its bunker fuel blending business in the […]

NEW YORK (NYTIMES) – Therese Nauwelaertz had been working in information technology at a large health care organization in Seattle for nine months when she got a new project manager. She still had the same supervisor, but this new person was a layer in between them. Up until the new person started, “it was pretty […]

SINGAPORE – Singapore Airlines has raised US$500 million (S$663 million) in its first US dollar-denominated bond issue, with final demand reaching more than US$2.85 billon, the company said on Thursday (Jan 14). The oversubscribed issue was anchored by high quality institutional investors including real money asset managers, said SIA. Thanking investors for their “strong support”, CEO Goh Choon […]

NEW YORK  (BLOOMBERG) – US officials deliberated but ultimately decided against banning American investment in Alibaba Group Holdin and Tencent Holdings, a person familiar with the discussions said, removing a cloud of uncertainty over Asia’s two biggest corporations. The Treasury Department blocked a Pentagon effort to add the two internet firms on grounds they aided the […]

The past year has changed the job market in Singapore dramatically, with digital transformation gaining significant traction across almost all sectors. To help professionals keep pace, SAP and Temasek Polytechnic have introduced a seven-month training initiative under the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme — Company Training (SGUP–CT) for mid-career job seekers. If you are looking for […]

HONG KONG (REUTERS) – Singapore Airlines launched its first US dollar bond on Wednesday (Jan 13) to help fund the purchase of new aircraft, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters. The size of the deal has yet to be officially set but is expected to be a “benchmark” transaction which means it should […]

HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – As HSBC Holdings pins its future on China, Europe’s largest bank is grooming a set of well-connected bankers to navigate its fraught relationship with Beijing in the long run. David Liao and Mark Yunfeng Wang, heads of Asia Pacific global banking and its China operations, respectively, are among a handful of […]

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Robert Goldstein had just been offered a good job to run a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when Sheldon Mr Adelson called to pitch him on a new opportunity. Over Chinese food, the younger executive listened to Mr Adelson’s vision for a Las Vegas resort focused on convention goers and […]

SEOUL (BLOOMBERG) – South Korea lost the most jobs in two decades and the unemployment rate hit a 10-year high as the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak yet forced businesses to slash hiring. The nation shed 628,000 jobs in December compared with the prior year, a tenth straight monthly drop and the most since February 1999. Restaurant […]

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) – Blackstone Group is looking to purchase Lucasfilm’s state-of-the art facility, The Sandcrawler, named for the classic Star Wars transport that inspired its design. The US private equity giant has started the process of buying the building for about $175 million, according to people familiar with the matter. The sale is pending regulatory […]

What if you can’t decide which university course to take because you’re interested in two different fields of study? Pursue both. Ms Geraldine Lee, 21, faced this dilemma in 2019. Fortunately for her, she found an option that let her pursue her interests in science and technology — the SMU-Duke-NUS Medicine Pathway. Having taken Biology […]

SINGAPORE – An 83-year-old Singaporean man who returned from India was among the 17 new coronavirus cases confirmed on Tuesday (Jan 12). He was asymptomatic and tested positive for the virus on Monday. Tuesday’s cases were all imported, taking Singapore’s total to 58,946. They were all serving their stay-home notices or had been isolated on […]

SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) – CapitaLand’s The Ascott has built a four-year straight streak of record growth in property units in 2020 as it boosts recurring fee income through management and franchise contracts. In 2020, Ascott added 14,200 units across 71 properties globally despite Covid-19. The additional units exceeded the total number of units added […]

TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) – SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund sold about US$2 billion (S$2.7 billion) in Uber Technologies stock, cashing in after an increase in the ride-hailing giant’s shares. An affiliate of the investment fund called SB Cayman 2 sold 38 million shares on Jan 7 at an average price of US$53.46, according to a filing […]

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – A steep selloff in Bitcoin is fueling concern that the cryptocurrency bubble may be about to burst. Bitcoin slid as much as 26 per cent over Sunday (Jan 10) and Monday in the biggest two-day slide since March. After dropping as much as 20 per cent during New York trading hours […]

SINGAPORE – Almost all companies listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) will need to appoint a local auditor approved by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) from next month. SGX’s regulatory arm, the Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo), made the announcement Tuesday (Jan 12), about a year after it opened a public consultation on […]

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – A two-word app recommendation from Elon Musk has turned into a massive rally in the shares of a tiny medical device company in another case of mistaken identity. “Use Signal,” the Tesla chief executive officer wrote on Twitter on Jan 7, apparently referring to the encrypted messaging service. Despite reports about […]

SINGAPORE – A one-year-old baby and a two-year-old toddler who arrived from India were among the 22 new coronavirus cases confirmed on Monday (Jan 11). Both girls, the baby is a short-term visit pass holder while the toddler is a dependant’s pass holder. They were asymptomatic and tested positive for the virus on Sunday. Monday’s […]

BEIJING (AFP) – China’s consumer prices rebounded in December, official data showed Monday, as food prices picked up due to weather difficulties and rising demand ahead of the Lunar New Year festival. In December, the consumer price index (CPI) rose more than expected at 0.2 per cent on-year, said the National Bureau of Statistics, with […]

BEIJING (REUTERS) – China’s search engine giant Baidu said it will set up a company to partner with car maker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group to make smart electric vehicles (EV), Baidu said in a statement on Monday (Jan 11). Baidu, which has been developing autonomous driving technology and Internet connectivity infrastructure, said the new EV […]