Rounding up top investing articles from around the web, including articles shared on Twitter.
Iswaran pleads guilty: Prosecution seeks 6 to 7 months’ jail, sentencing set for Oct 3 (Straits Times)
Former transport minister S. Iswaran pleaded guilty on Sept 24, on what was supposed to be the first day of his scheduled trial.
Iswaran, 62, is now convicted of five charges, and the prosecution is seeking a jail term of six to seven months.
He is expected to be sentenced on Oct 3.
Four of these charges are for obtaining, as a public servant, valuable items from Formula One (F1) race promoter Singapore GP’s chairman Ong Beng Seng and Mr David Lum, managing director of mainboard-listed construction company Lum Chang Holdings.
Iswaran also admitted to one charge of obstructing the course of justice.
The obstruction charge relates to the $5,700 he repaid to Singapore GP for the cost of his business-class flight from Doha to Singapore that he took in 2022, at Mr Ong’s expense through the company.
Iswaran has paid back $380,000 to the state and will forfeit the items he received.
Singapore population crosses 6 million mark (Straits Times)
Singapore’s total population stood at 6.04 million as at June 2024, a 2 per cent rise from June 2023, the Government’s latest Population in Brief report showed.
The increase was due mainly to the 5 per cent growth in the non-resident population, which grew from 1.77 million in June 2023 to 1.86 million in June 2024, said the annual report released on Sept 24 by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD).
The increase in non-resident workers, including work permit holders and migrant domestic workers, helped to provide much-needed services to meet Singaporeans’ social and economic needs, for instance by supporting caregiving needs, and by taking up occupations that residents are typically not keen on, such as construction jobs, said the NPTD in a statement.
Fewer marriages and Singaporean births in 2023 (CNA)
More job seekers cite discrimination over age and nationality in 2023: MOM survey (Straits Times)
More resident job seekers felt they were treated unfairly during their job search because of their age or nationality in 2023, compared with the year before.
But overall, there was a decrease in the proportion of employees and job seekers experiencing discrimination over their personal attributes such as age, race and mental health.
The improvements reflect the efforts by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (Tafep) and tripartite partners in promoting fair employment practices, said the ministry in its latest fair employment practices report released on Sept 24.
New office will be set up to streamline approval processes, cut red tape for Singapore SMEs (Straits Times)
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) facing long-drawn or complicated governmental procedures can soon approach a new office for help to streamline approval processes and cut red tape.
The SME Pro-Enterprise Office (SME PEO) will gather feedback from SMEs on pain points, especially those involving more than one government agency, and then pass the feedback to relevant agencies to look into possible solutions to alleviate regulatory bottlenecks.
Temasek commits $100m to climate action projects as it celebrates 50th anniversary (Straits Times)
Singapore’s investment company Temasek will set aside $100 million in capital to support climate action initiatives as part of its philanthropic endeavours, its chairman Lim Boon Heng said on Sept 23.
The sum will be used as concessional capital, which means that Temasek will channel the funds under terms that are more favourable than typical market loans to finance such projects.
In doing so, Temasek also hopes to draw additional capital from sources that might otherwise be hesitant to fund these projects, including commercial investors and other concessional financiers.
The funds will come from Temasek’s community gifts, which are philanthropic in nature and meant to create impact across generations, aligning with the company’s goals.
Toyota expands share buyback plan to reflect share drop (CNA)
Toyota Motor on Tuesday increased its share buyback plan through Apr 30 to up to ¥1.2 trillion (US$8.31 billion) from ¥1 trillion in view of the latest share price.
Toyota had decided on May 8 to buy back up to 410 million shares, or 3.04 per cent worth of its outstanding shares excluding treasury shares.
The Japanese automaker’s shares have plunged 27 per cent since then, closing at ¥2,617 on Tuesday.
China central bank releases slate of support measures amid a deepening economic slump (CNBC)
- People’s Bank of China Gov. Pan Gongsheng announced a flood of support measures in a rare press conference Tuesday amid a deepening economic slump.
- Beijing will cut the amount of cash banks need to have on hand, known as the reserve requirement ratio, or RRR, by 50 basis points in the near term, he said.
- Pan also said the PBOC would cut the 7-day repo rate by 0.2 percentage points, and signaled that a 0.2-0.25% cut in the loan prime rate could follow.
Property stocks in Hong Kong rally on mortgage stimulus (CNBC)
- People’s Bank of China Gov. Pan Gongsheng on Tuesday announced that Beijing would reduce the interest rates on existing individual mortgages by an average of 0.5 percentage points, and the lower down-payment ratio for second homes purchases to 15% from 25%.
- Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index surged as much as 5% when Hong Kong markets opened shortly after the announcement was made.
- Hong Kong-listed shares of real estate developers like China Resources Land, Longfor Group Holdings and China Overseas Land & Investment were some of the biggest movers, gaining as much as 2.84%, 3.31% and 4.22%, respectively.
Luxury stocks slip as fears grow of a prolonged downturn (CNBC)
- Luxury stocks tumbled Monday as analysts warned of a deteriorating demand outlook, particularly among high-spending Chinese consumers.
- Germany’s Hugo Boss was among the worst performers on the Stoxx 600 index, down 4% at midday in London.
- “I think most people were hoping things would improve in the second half of the year — no sign of that happening at all at the moment,” Kepler Cheuvreux’s Jon Cox told CNBC on Monday.
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