The Housing Board yesterday said that it will release a residential site at Bishan Street 14 for sale by tender.

The 129,200 sq ft site has a 4.9 plot ratio - giving it a gross floor area of 632,900 sq ft. The site has a lease of 99 years.

Analysts said that the site could fetch between $370-$450 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) - which will bring the total price paid by the successful developer to anywhere between $234.2 million and $284.8 million.

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Some of the 99-year leasehold residential land parcels went for bargain prices.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) yesterday auctioned off six 99-year leasehold residential land parcels for some $30.6 million in all - but some of the sites went for bargain prices.

A 16,690 sq ft good class bungalow (GCB) site at Eng Neo Avenue was picked up by a buyer for at the starting auction price of $6 million - which works out to $360 per square foot (psf). The buyer, Foo Chee King John, said that he was lucky to have won the site at such a good price.

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A wholly-owned subsidiary of Mapletree Logistics Trust (MapletreeLog) has entered into a conditional agreement to buy a warehouse in Sapporo, Japan for 1.45 billion yen ($19.1 million).

The seller is Real Cierto, which develops various types property including apartments, offices and shopping centres.

The four-storey warehouse has an auxiliary three-storey office block. Located in Sapporo Logistics Park, it has easy access to major infrastructure including highways and railway stations, said trust manager Mapletree Logistics Trust Management (MLTM) yesterday.

The property has a gross floor area of 11,255 sq m and is on freehold land of 4,958 sq m.

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Powermatic will lease back the property for 5 years.

MacarthurCook Industrial Reit (MI-Reit) has signed an agreement to acquire an office and warehouse facility in the Tai Seng industrial precinct for $25 million.

Under the agreement, Powermatic Data Systems, which is listed on the Singapore Exchange, will lease back the property at 135 Joo Seng Road for five years with the option to extend for another five years. The lease will commence upon the completion of the acquisition, which is scheduled for February 2008.

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(BEIJING) China Investment Corp, the nation’s US$200 billion sovereign wealth fund, signalled that it may invest in stocks rocked by sub-prime mortgage defaults.

Mr Jiwei: CIC wants to be a force for stability in global capital markets

‘CIC wants to be a stabilising force in the international capital markets,’ chairman Lou Jiwei told a conference in Beijing yesterday. He then cited a ‘recent example’ in which a similar fund invested in a financial institution with sub-prime losses, without identifying the two parties.

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(SINGAPORE) Asia and the rest of the world have yet to see the full impact of the fallout from the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market, the South-east Asia head of Standard Chartered said yesterday.

Ray Ferguson, who was until recently the international banking group’s US country head, warned that conditions in the housing market there are likely to worsen as more ‘teaser-rate’ mortgages - those sold with low initial interest rates - reset to higher interest rates in the coming months.

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Sub-prime crisis, keen competition and cost increases are changing the game.

(SINGAPORE) Private banks are growing cautious about taking on staff here, with headquarters hit by massive write-downs from the sub-prime crisis in the US, sources say.

‘The banks won’t admit this but they are probably not as aggressive as before,’ said Gary Lai, manager of search firm Robert Walters’ front office banking practice.

Private banking has taken off in Singapore in the past two years. Assets under management have grown to an estimated US$500 billion this year, leading to a shortage of staff.

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(HONG KONG) Asian stocks rallied yesterday, tracking an overnight surge on Wall Street amid a brightening outlook for the US economy - a key export market for Asian companies.

Investors took heart after the Dow Jones industrial average mustered its biggest two-day point gain in five years following hints from a Federal Reserve official that the central bank may lower interest rates again.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index soared 1,111.30 points, or 4.06 per cent, to 28,482.54 points. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 average shot up 359.96 points, or 2.38 per cent, to finish at 15,513.74 points.

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Property markets remain depressed with few signs of stabilisation.

(NEW YORK) The US Federal Reserve said economic growth slowed in seven of 12 US regions, with retailers ’slightly pessimistic’ about year-end holiday sales.

Weak sales: Reports on retail spending ‘were downbeat in general, with several significant exceptions’, according to the survey.

‘The national economy continued to expand during the survey period of October through mid-November but at a reduced pace,’ the central bank said in its regional business survey, known as the Beige Book for the colour of its cover.

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(NEW YORK) Credit flowing to American companies is drying up at a pace not seen in decades, threatening the creation of jobs and the expansion of businesses, while intensifying worries that the economy may be headed for recession.

The combined value of two leading sources of credit - outstanding commercial and industrial bank loans, and short-term loans known as commercial paper - peaked at about US$3.3 trillion in August, according to data from the US Federal Reserve. By mid-November, such credit was down to US$3 trillion, a drop of nearly 9 per cent.

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