SG Morning Highlights | Hiap Hoe Unit Buys Western Australian Motel for A$40 Million

Singapore shares opened higher on Wednesday. The $FTSE Singapore Straits Time Index (.STI.SG)$ rose 0.15 per cent to 3,121.27 as at 9.28 am.

$Hiap Hoe (5JK.SG)$: Real estate group Hiap Hoe on Tuesday (Dec 19) announced the purchase of a 198-bedroom freehold motel property in Western Australia for A$40 million (S$35.9 million). The property is Great Eastern Motor Lodge, which is situated along the Great Eastern Highway, the main road linking the domestic and international terminals at Perth Airport to the Western Australian capital's central business district. Hiap Hoe said the lodge benefits from an array of transport connections and serves as focal points of the inner-city suburb of Rivervale, which is undergoing a comprehensive regeneration involving multiple residential, commercial and lifestyle venue developments.

$Amara (A34.SG)$: XANDAR Capital, the independent financial adviser (IFA) in the exit offer for Amara Holdings, has deemed the voluntary cash offer at S$0.60 per share from a consortium linked to Albert Teo, the hotel group's chief executive, to be "fair and reasonable". The IFA estimates the value of each share to be between S$0.53 and S$0.54. Among the valuation metrics used, the IFA looked at the price-to-net asset values (P/NAV) of several locally listed property companies and concluded that the final offer price's ratio is above the mean and median ratios of the comparable companies. The opinion is despite the final offer price's discount of 51.89 per cent to its S$1.247 revalued net asset value (RNAV) per share, or price to RNAV of 0.48 times.