SG Morning Highlights | Singapore key exports contract 15.6% in February in fifth straight month of decline

Advancers / Decliners is 55 to 85, with 76.46 million securities worth S$79.49 million changing hands.

Some of the world's largest central banks came together on Sunday to stop a banking crisis from spreading as Swiss authorities persuaded UBS Group AG on Sunday to buy rival Credit Suisse Group AG in a historic deal.

UBS will pay 3 billion Swiss francs (S$4.33 billion) for 167-year-old Credit Suisse and assume up to US$5.4 billion in losses in a deal backed by a massive Swiss guarantee and expected to close by the end of 2023.

Soon after the announcement late on Sunday, the US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and other major central banks came out with statements to reassure markets that have been walloped by a banking crisis that started with the collapse of two regional US banks earlier this month.

Singapore's key exports in February took a sharp turn for the worse sequentially, even if year-on-year decline eased relative to the previous month, data from Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) showed on Friday (Mar 17).

Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) fell 8 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted month-on-month basis in February, undoing the 0.9 per cent expansion in the month before. This is the deepest sequential contraction since September 2020.

Barclays regional economist Brian Tan said the sharp drop was broad-based and not due to the usual volatile sectors.

The US Federal Reserve and other major central banks announced on Sunday a coordinated effort to improve banks' access to liquidity, hoping to calm worries rattling the global banking sector.

The special drive will be launched on Monday by the Fed and the central banks of Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, the European Union and Switzerland.

The announcement came hours after Switzerland brokered the UBS takeover of its troubled Swiss rival Credit Suisse.

Hong Kong-based asset manager Anatole plans to open an office in Singapore and may shift some important functions to the city-state, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the discussions.

Gary Lee, Anatole's chief operating officer, told the newspaper that the group was opening a Singapore office, but did not say how employees would be divided between the South-east Asian financial hub and Hong Kong.

He said the office would be an "outpost", adding that he remained "bullish on the China recovery".

But even if the unit has to wind up, the group said that this would not materially impact operations and financial condition for its financial year ending Dec 31, 2023. 

This is because Yangzijiang Shipping is "dormant", and its net asset value is "negligible" compared to the group's, it stated in a bourse filing.

The exit offer price will be raised by 13 per cent to S$0.181 per share, from S$0.16.

The cash alternative price will be raised by 18 per cent to 6,500 rupiah, from 5,500 rupiah, with the revised cash alternative price being paid in Singaporean dollars based on a fixed exchange rate of S$1 to 11,432.09 rupiah.

The disposal is in the group's "ordinary course of business", the real estate company said in a bourse filing, which set out to flag multiple inaccuracies in an article published on investment news platform Mingtiandi.com on Mar 15.

The article with the headline "Singapore's Ho Bee Land Sells Industrial Assets After SGX Queries Debt Load" alleged, among other things, that the group is disposing of HB Centre I on Tannery Road and HB Centre II on Tannery Lane as it faces a debt deadline, and is "paying to play".

The filing stated that 86 per cent of onshore lenders and 89 per cent of offshore lenders have agreed to extend the mandatory repayment deadline to the end of April, subject to the finalisation of terms and conditions under the revised repayment plan.

The rest of the lenders are in the process of obtaining internal approvals in relation to the extension.