SG Morning Highlights | Sembcorp's solar and energy storage project in Indonesia terminated

Advancers / Decliners is 115 to 55, with 150.46 million securities worth S$159.71 million changing hands.

Binance Holdings, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and chief executive officer Changpeng Zhao, were sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly breaking trading and derivatives rules.

The CFTC filed the lawsuit on Monday (Mar 27) in federal court in Chicago.

The derivatives regulator said Binance shirked its obligations by not properly registering with it.

Average potential global economic growth will slump to a three-decade low of 2.2 per cent per year through 2030, ushering in a "lost decade" for the world's economy, unless policymakers adopt ambitious initiatives to boost labour supply, productivity and investment, the World Bank warned on Monday (Mar 27).

The Economic Development Board's (EDB) chairman, Beh Swan Gin, will soon join the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) as Permanent Secretary of Development, the Public Service Division (PSD) said on Monday (Mar 27), as it announced a reshuffle of some permanent secretary positions.

The changes and re-designations take effect on May 1, 2023.

In tandem with Dr Beh's new appointment, MTI Permanent Secretary Gabriel Lim will be re-designated as Permanent Secretary (Policy) of the ministry.

Hong Kong's exports fell for a ninth consecutive month in February as demand for goods from China and the rest of the world remained weak, weighing on the financial hub's post-pandemic recovery.

To successfully meet their climate ambitions, economies in South-east Asia will need to dramatically ramp up their investments in clean energy – to an annual level of some US$180 billion by 2030, from current levels of around US$30 billion per year.

All parties have mutually agreed to end the JDA, and the consortium has been dissolved, Sembcorp disclosed in a Monday (Mar 27) bourse filing.

The company entered the JDA back in October 2021 with Indonesian companies PLN Batam and Trisurya Mitra Bersama. The project, planned for the Batam, Bintan and Karimun region, was to generate approximately 1 Gigawatt peak (GWp) of solar power.

As at 5.30pm on Monday, the total number of shares owned, controlled or agreed to be acquired by Boustead Singapore and its concert parties, as well as valid acceptances of the offer, stood at 299.2 million shares, or 95.5 per cent of the total number of shares.

The disclosure came after Boustead Projects’ shares closed flat at S$0.955 on Monday, slightly above the S$0.95 offer price. The company will request that trading in its shares be suspended from Tuesday’s market open.

Its manager, Manulife US Real Estate Management, had received "multiple queries" on Monday following news of US regional banks' troubles and investor sentiment on US-based real estate funds, it said. The Reit’s lenders are mainly Singapore and international banks.

The manager added that the Reit's unsecured sustainability-linked loan facility has been fully drawn to refinance its US$105 million Phipps mortgage loan. "Manulife US Reit will not have any refinancing requirements until 2024 and 100 per cent of its loans will be unsecured," it said.