Reports » Singapore

Singapore stock market and companies daily report (Yanlord Land Group, Ho Bee Investment, Singapore Airlines) (February 18, 2010)

Contributed by Shares Investment

By Shares Investment

January Private Home Sales Off To Roaring Start
The private housing market has entered the year 2010 on a firm footing, with developers’ home sales in January rising to 1,476 units – 3 times as high as the previous month. They also hit their highest level since August last year. Of the units launched in January as well as units sold in the same month, about half were in the Core Central Region, reflecting a revival in activity in the choicest housing locations in Singapore. Another interesting statistic gleaned from the latest monthly data released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday is that 76% of the total units sold in January were priced at at least $1,000 psf. Such a high proportion has not been seen since URA began releasing such data in June 2007, observes property agency PropNex CEO Mohamed Ismail.
Industry players expect this trend to continue for the rest of 2010, pointing to high land prices achieved at state tenders late last year, which would translate into higher target selling prices by developers.

Yanlord And Ho Bee Forms JV To Buy $785m Shanghai Site
Yanlord Land Group and Ho Bee Investment have jointly acquired a 13.69 hectare prime residential site in Qingpu District, Shanghai, for Rmb3.82b or $785m at a public land auction. Yanlord will have 60% equity in the project, while Ho Bee will have 40%. The project is expected to generate at least 2,000 units to be launched in phases over 6 to 8 years, with initial sales to begin in 2 years.
The latest acquisition extends an earlier collaboration between the 2 companies in Tangshan. Last October, their Singapore JV company Yanlord Ho Bee Investments signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tangshan Nanhu Eco-city administrative committee to explore developing a high- end residential project in Nanhu Eco-City.

SIA’s Jan Operating Numbers Up Amid Reduced Capacities
Singapore Airlines (SIA) filled 79.1% of its seats in January – a full 5 percentage points improvement over the previous year’s 74.1%, thanks to a reduction in capacity. The 7.8% cut in capacity (available seat KMs) more than compensated for a 1.6% decline in passenger carriage (revenue passenger KMs), resulting in the sharp improvement in passenger load factor during the month.
On the cargo side, SIA saw an improvement in load factor to 60.1%, compared to 54.1% a year earlier. Boosting the numbers was a 6.8% cut in capacity and a 3.3% increase in cargo carriage. With SIA gradually reinstating capacity and services this year amid an improvement in the operating environment, it remains to be seen how load factors will be affected, going forward.