SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The logistics unit of Singapore sovereign fund GIC GIC.UL has assets worth over $8 billion and the fund hopes to sell a minority stake in the business at 1.3 to 1.4 times book value, a source briefed on the listing said on Tuesday.

The source also said that 65 percent of Global Logistic Properties’ (GLP) asset value comprises warehouses and other buildings in Japan, with China accounting for the remainder. The GIC unit owns 296 properties of which 69 are in Japan.

GIC will retain at least 50 percent of its logistics unit after the initial public offering next month, added the source who was at a briefing for fund managers held by one of the bookrunners for GLP’s initial public offering.

“At such valuations, the IPO may be a tough sell. It’s not a China story as the bulk of the assets are in Japan,” said the source, who declined to be identified as the briefing was confidential.

GIC was not immediately available for comment.

GIC last week kicked off the “pre-marketing” of GLP’s IPO that aims to raise as much as $3 billion, potentially making it Singapore’s largest IPO ahead of Singapore Telecommunications (STEL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) S$4 billion listing in 1993.

The bookbuilding is scheduled to begin on Sept 23 and the IPO will be priced on Oct 8, according to a note seen by Reuters.

SINGAPORE, Sept 14 (Reuters) – The logistics unit of Singapore sovereign fund GIC [GIC.UL] has assets worth over $8 billion and the fund hopes to sell a minority stake in the business at 1.3 to 1.4 times book value, a source briefed on the listing said on Tuesday.

The source also said that 65 percent of Global Logistic Properties’ (GLP) asset value comprises warehouses and other buildings in Japan, with China accounting for the remainder. The GIC unit owns 296 properties of which 69 are in Japan.

GIC will retain at least 50 percent of its logistics unit after the initial public offering next month, added the source who was at a briefing for fund managers held by one of the bookrunners for GLP’s initial public offering.

“At such valuations, the IPO may be be a tough sell. It’s not a China story as the bulk of the assets are in Japan,” said the source, who declined to be identified as the briefing was confidential.

GIC was not immediately available for comment.

GIC last week kicked off the “pre-marketing” of GLP’s IPO that aims to raise as as much as $3 billion, potentially making it Singapore’s largest IPO ahead of Singapore Telecommunications (STEL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research) S$4 billion listing in 1993. [ID:nSGE688027]

The bookbuilding is scheduled to begin on Sept 23 and the IPO will be priced on Oct 8, according to a note seen by Reuters.

SINGAPORE, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will offer trading in ADRs from Oct 22, becoming the first Asian bourse to let investors trade in shares of some large Chinese firms such as Baidu (BIDU.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and CTRIP (CTRP.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in Asian hours.

SGX, Asia’s second-largest bourse by market cap, will start with the American Depositary Receipts of 19 Chinese firms listed in the United States.

Nine of the 19 firms are currently traded only in the United States only, while the other 10 also have listings on Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (0388.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). SGX is offering the trading in ADRs in partnership with NASDAQ-OMX (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).OMXHPI.

“Many of these companies, including Baidu and Suntech Power Holdings (STP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), do not have Asian home exchanges,” the Singapore bourse said. “SGX-quoted ADRs enable investors to act on news flow about these companies during Asian hours.”

SGX, which has lost out to Hong Kong in attracting listings by large Chinese companies, has been trying to boost trading volumes with new products such as gold and Robusta coffee.

SGX executive vice president Chew Sutat said in the case of firms with Hong Kong listings, investors can use the Singapore market to react to overnight developments as trading on SGX starts one hour earlier.

The Singapore bourse operator also plans to offer bond trading for retail investors, and is close to launching a “dark pool” joint venture with Nomura’s (8604.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chi-X that will trade Japanese, Hong Kong, Australian and Singapore shares. [ID:nSGE66S0EO]

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Franklin Templeton is betting the surging yen will weaken against the dollar and other Asian currencies as it expects Japanese officials to take more steps to ease policy, one of the firm’s top fund managers said on Wednesday.

Franklin Templeton is also bullish on Asian government bonds, in particular those from Australia, South Korea and Indonesia, as it expects Asian currencies to strengthen against the majors, co-director of international bonds Michael Hasenstab said on Wednesday.

“The only source of strength in the Japanese economy is exports. And with the yen sub-90 (per dollar), they will be under extreme pressure,” Hasenstab told the Dealing Room, a Reuters messaging chatroom.

“With deflation still a problem in Japan and the yen so strong, we would expect some form of policy action,” said Hasenstab, who manages over $80 billion of Templeton’s $235 billion in fixed-income assets.

The yen JPY= has risen 11 percent against the dollar so far this year and is trading at 15-year highs, driven by investors seeking less risky assets amid fears the U.S. economy may be sliding back into recession.

The U.S. currency has also fallen against most Asian currencies, albeit by smaller amounts.

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Wednesday that Japan would take decisive steps on the yen’s rise when needed, including intervening in the market to weaken the currency.

SINGAPORE, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Julius Baer (BAER.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Switzerland’s third largest private bank, plans to double Asia’s contribution to 20-25 percent of assets in five years as it recruits new staff and opens more offices in the region.

Julius Baer, which has 166 billion Swiss francs ($163.2 billion) in assets under management as of end-June, currently derives the bulk of its business in Europe with Asian clients accounting for just over 10 percent of AUM.

But the bank has identified Asia as its “second home market” and its expansion plans include upgrading its Northeast Asia headquarters in Hong Kong to a booking centre before year-end and opening a representative office in Shanghai next year.

Julius Baer also plans to set up a trust office in Singapore to advise clients in areas such as estate planning, CEO for Asia and the Middle East Thomas Meier said on Monday.

“We are trying to move into a (Singapore) office space that can house 700 people,” he said when asked about new hirings. The bank employs over 400 people in Asia, the majority of them in Singapore.

Julius Baer CEO Boris Collardi said the bank was keen on “selective acquisitions” and has excess capital of 1.2 billion Swiss francs available to support its growth strategy.

“We would love to buy something in Asia… The problem is everybody wants to buy but nobody wants to sell,” he said.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The M Hotel in Singapore’s business district once struggled to fill its rooms on weekends as visiting executives tended to leave by Friday. Now it enjoys 90 percent-plus occupancy even on Saturdays and Sundays.

A prime destination mainly for bankers and businessmen, Singapore also has started drawing tourists with a slew of new attractions, the most popular being two casino-complexes built at a cost of over $10 billion that opened earlier this year.

The two casinos and their related attractions represent the new face of a city that wants to transform itself from regional trade and financial centre into a place for both work and play.

“I’m looking out of my window at the new skyline. What has developed over the last five years has been amazing,” Hanspeter Brummer, CEO for Asia at Swiss private bank BSI, said from his office which overlooks the new Marina Bay financial district.

“Singapore is more than just Monte Carlo, which is a bit artificial. Singapore doesn’t just have one industry but a number of industries. People really have good reasons to come here,” said Brummer, a Swiss national who worked in the city-state from 1997 to 2000 and returned in 2006.

Unlike the existing central business district, Marina Bay, built on reclaimed land around the mouth of the Singapore River, comprises not just office skyscrapers but also shops, residences, theatres and the towering $5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands built by U.S. casino giant Las Vegas Sands.

Marina Bay is also home to the world’s biggest ferris wheel, restaurants fronted by Michelin-starred celebrity chefs and the world’s first night-time Formula One circuit.

SINGAPORE, Aug 30 (Reuters) – DBS’s (DBSM.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) head of consumer banking, Rajan Raju, has resigned after 11 years with Southeast Asia’s biggest bank and is joining Deutsche Asset Management in a senior role, sources familiar with the move said.

The departure comes during a string of leadership changes at DBS in Hong Kong and Singapore, as Chief Executive Piyush Gupta tries to boost market share in the bank’s two key markets.

Gupta has hired Sebastian Paredes, formerly with Indonesia’s Bank Danamon (BDMN.JK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), as head of its Hong Kong unit. He has also named ex-Citibanker Sim S. Lim to the newly created post of country manager for Singapore and poached Tan Su Shan from Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) as private banking head. [ID:nSGE67F0EP]

“If such big personalities were hired in major markets, then what was left for Rajan Raju,” said an analyst at a foreign brokerage who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“DBS has also not done well in consumer banking recently.”

DBS consumer banking unit, which includes the private bank, reported a 13.6 percent decline in second quarter net profit from a year ago.

The consumer banking unit was also at the centre of a storm after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. DBS’s retail clients in Singapore and Hong Kong, who bought structured notes linked to the failed U.S. bank, held demonstrations to demand compensation.

SINGAPORE, Aug 30 (Reuters) – Singapore on Monday announced restrictions on people buying second homes as part of new measures to cool its residential property market, hurting property stocks.

The new measures, which take immediate effect, include decreasing the amount people can borrow to buy second properties to 70 percent from 80 perent, as well as extending a stamp duty on sellers who buy and sell within three years.

The duty currently applies to those who dispose of the property within one year. The second home restrictions will apply also for owners of government-built apartments who buy additional private property.

The new measures hurt Singapore-listed property stocks with Southeast Asia’s biggest developer Capitaland (CATL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) falling by 2 percent and City Developments (CTDM.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) dropping as much as 2.8 percent while the broader market was trading higher.

“The government has decided to introduce additional measures now to temper sentiment and encourage financial prudence among property developers,” the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of National Development and Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a joint statement.

Singapore’s move to curb speculation in its residential property market comes on the heels of similar moves by China and Hong Kong, which are also trying to keep a lid on rising home prices.

Hong Kong earlier this month tightened mortgage lending for bigger flats as prices headed for historic highs, while China is clamping down on bank lending to the property sector as well as making sure developers do not hoard land meant for housing development. [ID:nTOE67C067] [ID:nTOE67I087]

SINGAPORE, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL] hired Greg Curl, who was once touted as a CEO candidate for Bank of America (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), as president as the Singapore state investor beefs up its top management team.

Curl, 62, who worked as BofA’s chief risk officer, will oversee financial services and strategic engagements in the Americas, Temasek said in a statement.

He will look after Temasek’s most important sector as financial services accounted for 37 percent of its $134 billion portfolio as of March.

Curl, once considered a successor to Bofa’s former CEO Ken Lewis, will join Temasek as president, the same rank as Simon Israel and former Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) CEO Hsieh Fu Hua who are both one level below CEO Ho Ching.

Israel and Hsieh are, however, also executive directors at Temasek.

Temasek CEO Ho, who is also wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said the new hires will add “tremendous depth” to its leadership.

Ho has stayed on as chief executive after strategic differences led to the premature departure of CEO-designate and former BHP Billiton (BHP.AX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) head Chip Goodyear in July 2009.

SINGAPORE/WELLINGTON (Reuters) – “Dark pools” and other alternative trading systems are not as big a threat to Asia’s bourses as they are for their western counterparts, given regulators’ reluctance to grant them a free reign and due to structural differences in markets.

Dark pools, so named because they represent large pools of “buy” and “sell” orders not visible to regular investors, operate relatively freely and match billions of dollars in stock transactions each day in the west.

But in Asia, where stock exchanges are often seen as national assets, regulators are likely to curb their activities to protect incumbents as well as ensure markets remain wholly transparent.

“Emerging market regulators have bad memories about the Asian financial crisis and are concerned about speculators,” said Richard Kang, CIO at New York-based Emerging Global Advisors, who manages about $120 million (76.5 million pounds) in exchange-traded funds.

“Liquidity pools, dark pools, alternative trading systems etc are still relatively new…they (Asian regulators) will wait for cues from the U.S. to see if dark pools are beneficial or a burden to their capital markets.”

Dark-pool operators acknowledge Asian markets will be harder to crack, but they remain keen to expand in the region where they account for just 1-3 percent of trades in the larger, more liquid markets and close to zero in smaller bourses.

Chi-X, a unit of Nomura (8604.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and the biggest dark pool operator in Europe, last month launched a service in Japan and has plans to do the same in Singapore and Australia. Tora, a trading technology firm part-owned by Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research), recently announced plans to set up a pan-Asian dark pool.