SG Morning Highlights | Consumers lost over S$645,000 in prepayments in 2022, beauty industry saw highest losses: Case

Advancers / Decliners is 82 to 113, with 146.91 million securities worth S$156.45 million changing hands.

In January, S-Reits posted 7.1 per cent in total returns (based on the iEdge S-Reit Index) and booked net institutional fund inflows of S$3.2 million, outpacing STI's 3.5 per cent total returns.

The US Federal Reserve at the Feb 1 FOMC meeting anchored to a 25 basis point (bps) hike instead of a 50bps hike, which saw 10-year US Treasury yields decline to around 3.5 per cent.

Expectations of a slower pace of interest rate increases this year could affect market sentiment towards sectors which are more sensitive to interest rates, such as Reits.

When China ended its zero-Covid policy in December 2022, several countries imposed restrictions on Chinese visitor arrivals amid the surge in Covid-19 cases in China, but Singapore decided against it, to some criticism.

Experts here who studied the issue decided that although there were many cases, there were no new variants of concern.

The Republic was confident that its healthcare system would not be strained since not many visitors from China required hospitalisation, said Minister for Home Affairs and Law K Shanmugam on Sunday (Feb 5).

There may be relief for 150,000 commuters who endure hours-long waits to cross the road border from Malaysia to Singapore, The Star reported.

Malaysia has proposed a "single clearance system" to ease traffic along the Johor-Singapore Causeway, which often has workers waking up as early as 4 am to get to work on time.

The proposal, still in its initial stages, would have Malaysian immigration officials on the Singapore side of the Causeway, with Singaporean officials deployed to Johor.

Consumers lost more than S$645,000 in prepayments in 2022 because of the sudden closure of businesses, with the beauty industry accounting for the highest amount of losses, followed by the travel industry.

The total amount was a sharp increase of 24 per cent from S$520,000 in 2021, said the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) in a statement on its annual consumer complaint statistics for 2022 on Friday (Feb 3).

The beauty industry recorded more than S$285,000 in prepayment losses, or 44 per cent of the annual amount. The travel industry came in second with losses of over S$141,000, or 22 per cent of the total.

This was mainly due to cash collections in Q4 of 2022 from long-term receivables as well as progress and delivery payments from projects from the group's customers, said Sembmarine on Monday (Feb 6).

The cash collected will be used to pay payables and other working capital needs in FY2023.

The announcement follows the closing of an earlier acquisition, where the Chinese rubber producer acquired 36 per cent of Halcyon Agri's shares, which would trigger a mandatory conditional cash offer for all the shares in the Singapore-listed company.

Last November, Shanghai Stock Exchange-listed China Hainan Rubber said it was acquiring 36 per cent, or 574.2 million shares in Halcyon Agri at US$0.315 apiece, from substantial shareholder Sinochem International (Overseas).

In a lengthy list of responses posted in a bourse filing on Friday (Feb 3), the company replied to queries on its non-compliance with several provisions prescribed in the Code of Corporate Governance 2018. This includes not ensuring its board composition had an appropriate level of independence and diversity of thought and background, as well as its lack of disclosure on remuneration of key management personnel (KMP) to the full extent recommended by the Code.

SGX-ST noted that independent directors did not make up a majority of A-Smart's board where its chairman is not independent, and that no explanations were provided for this in its annual report.

The company had requested for a trading halt on Feb 2 after trading hours, as it was pending the release of the results of the scheme meeting held on Friday.

On Oct 17, 2022, Bonvests proposed a privatisation offer of Colex for the remaining shares that it and its subsidiary Coop International did not own by a scheme of arrangement. Bonvests offered S$0.23 in cash per share.