Dollar Rises As US Lawmakers Prepare To Vote On Bank Rescue
The dollar rose as President George W. Bush and Congressional leaders agreed on a US$700b plan to revive credit markets by purchasing banks’ distressed debt. The greenback gained against the yen as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the House of Representatives may consider the plan today and the Senate will vote by 1 October. The British pound and the euro dropped to one-week lows versus the dollar as European governments intervened to prevent the failures of Bradford & Bingley Plc, Britain’s biggest lender to landlords, and Fortis, the largest Belgian financial-services firm.

ST Engineering Signs US$406.5m US Contract
ST Engineering has, through its US shipyard VT Halter Marine Inc secured a contract worth US$393m with the US Navy for the Phase II of the Egyptian Navy’s Fast Missile Craft (FMC) project. In addition, a further US$13.5m was added to Phase I as a result of changes to work scope, thus adding a total contract value of US$406.5m to the project. Work commences immediately and delivery of the first FMC is expected by mid 2012.

OpenNet Is Selected To Be Singapore’s NGNBN Company
OpenNet (Axia NetMedia Corp 30%, SingTel 30%, SPH 25% and SP Telecomm 15%) has been selected by IDA to provide passive fibre grid services for Singapore’s Next Generation National Broadband Network (NGNBN). OpenNet will offer wholesale prices of $15 per-month-per-residential end-user and $50 per-monthper-non-residential end-user, which will allow IDA-qualified parties to offer new services and choice at affordable prices for end customers. OpenNet will progressively roll out the network beginning in 2009, achieving 60% roll out by 31 December 2010, and 95% by 30 June 2012.

Ho Bee Sells Property Worth $30m
Ho Bee Investment has, through its unit, Ho Bee Developments, inked a contract for the sale of its industrial building, Frontech Centre located at No. 15 Jalan Kilang Barat, Singapore to AG Frontech, for $30m. The building which is currently fully tenanted and has a lettable area of about 69.3k sqf, has a net book value of $14.0m and the sale will yield a pre-tax profit of approximately $15.7m. This will be reflected in the 4Q08 results and expected to make a positive impact on the company’s consolidated earnings and net tangible assets per share in FY08 ending 31 December.

SPH Raises Major Newspaper Prices
Since its last adjustment in 2004, the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has announced increases for most of its major newspapers, such as The Straits Times, to be in effect starting 1 October 2008. The price increase ranges from 10 cents to 20 cents and the company said that it will continue to absorb GST charges though. CEO Alan Chan noted that, with this round of price increases, the newspapers are still among the lowest priced compared to equivalent newspapers in the region and worldwide.

CRCT To Acquire Phase 2 Of Xizhimen Mall, Beijing
HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Singapore), as trustee of CapitaRetail China Trust (CRCT) has inked a conditional sale and purchase agreement with Beijing Finance Street Construction Development to acquire Xizhimen Mall Basement 1 Extension (Phase 2) for Rmb163.5m, to be completed by 1Q09. The acquisition, assuming 100% committed occupancy and current average rental rates commanded, is expected to achieve a net property income yield of 9.1%, which will be yield accretive to CRCT unitholders when compared to CRCT’s implied net property income yield of approximately 8.8%, based on CRCT’s closing unit price of $0.725 as at 26 September 2008.