SG Morning Highlights | OCBC Ups Stake in Insurance Arm Great Eastern to 88.4%

Advancers / Decliners is 69 to 87, with 125.17 million securities worth S$112.67 million changing hands.

The fortunes of Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways, the flagship airlines of two of Asia's most important financial hubs, differed during the pandemic and continue to diverge in its aftermath.

Their valuations are revealing – Singapore Airlines' market value of US$17 billion is almost three times that of Cathay's. Four years ago the difference was only about US$2 billion. Singapore Airlines just ended a 12-day run of gains, the longest streak since 2008, and it is up about 40 per cent this year. Cathay has fallen 9.3 per cent.

While both are better placed than they were during the depths of Covid, Singapore Airlines is rebounding much faster and flying high on a relentless wave of travel demand. Its stock price reflects its status as "a poster child for the Asian airline recovery", Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tim Bacchus said.

The United Kingdom (UK) may have more land per person than Singapore, yet suffers from a greater housing shortage.

Perhaps insufficient new homes are being built in parts of the UK because existing homeowners are able to block new housing development near their homes.

In contrast, there may hardly be any housing shortage in Singapore despite its limited land size.

Construction is constantly taking place all over the island, which may be bad for the environment. And many existing homeowners have to endure construction noise as well as fret over their views being blocked by new developments.

The purchase, OCBC stated, was on "a willing buyer willing seller basis" of about 2.3 million shares at S$16.99 each in cash or S$39.9 million in total, without specifying the date of the transaction.

The move came despite Great Eastern being a drag on the bank's performance in recent quarters. The Singapore-listed insurer posted a 22 per cent fall in total weighted new sales to S$390.9 million for its fiscal first quarter ended Mar 31, from S$503.6 million in the same period the year before.

The S$75.9 million proceeds will be used mainly to fund the acquisition of a portfolio of 17 retail properties located across France, IReit Global's manager said in a regulatory filing on Monday (Jun 19).

Up to about 186.1 million units will be offered to existing unit holders in the fund-raising exercise; the issue price represents a discount of about 9.6 per cent to the volume weighted average price of S$0.4515 per unit on Monday.