Singapore Home Prices Slide for Second Straight Quarter

Singapore’s first-quarter home prices slid for a second consecutive quarter as tighter mortgages cooled demand in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market.

An index tracking private residential prices fell 1.3 percent to 211.6 points in the three months ended March 31 following a 0.9 percent decline in the previous three-month period, according to preliminary data released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority today. The latest drop is the largest since June 2009.

The latest price drop “will set the tone for 2014,” said Donald Han, managing director of Chesterton Singapore Pte. “Prices in prime areas could fall more than suburban areas as prime districts are primarily resale apartments so there is no control over pricing whereas the suburbs have new projects where prices can be controlled by developers.”

Record home prices amid low interest rates raised concerns of a housing bubble and prompted the government to widen a campaign that started in 2009 to rein in speculation in the property market. Singapore unveiled rules in June governing how financial institutions grant property loans to individuals, in addition to previous measures including new taxes and higher down-payments.

Under the new loan framework lenders must consider a borrower’s debt when granting mortgages, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said June 28. Home loans should not lead to a borrower’s total debt-servicing ratio rising above 60 percent and those that do will be considered imprudent, it said.

Home prices increased by 1.1 percent in 2013, lower than the 2.8 percent gain in 2012 and the smallest annual increase since 2008 when prices slid 4.7 percent.

Loan Growth

Mortgage loan growth at 8.4 percent in February was the slowest pace since July 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg based on MAS figures showed.

Apartment prices fell 1.3 percent in prime districts in the first quarter after sliding 2.1 percent in the previous three months, the URA data showed. Those in the suburbs slid 0.3 percent, compared with a 1 percent decline in the previous quarter, according to the data. Prices in areas near prime districts fell 2.8 percent, compared with the 0.4 percent increase in the previous quarter, the data showed.

Home sales rose 1.7 percent in February from a year earlier as developers marketed new projects. Sales rose to 724 units compared with 712 in February 2013, according to URA data last month.

Sales of new private homes could drop to between 11,000 and 13,000 units this year from 14,948 in 2013, according to Nicholas Mak, executive director and head of research at SLP International Property Consultants in Singapore.

Singapore was the most-expensive city to buy a luxury home in Asia after Hong Kong, property broker Knight Frank LLP said in a wealth report last month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pooja Thakur in Singapore at pthakur@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net Iain McDonald, Linus Chua

Singapore Home Prices Slide for Second Straight Quarter

Read More

How Singapore Got Hooked on the Internet of Public Shame

On the online portal STOMP, owned by Singapore’s top newspaper, The Straits Times, Singaporeans upload photos and videos of each other indulging in behaviors that, anywhere else in the world, might be considered mundane. Typical entries include images of people eating on the subway, or making out in a public park. 

Of course, Singapore’s government has a well-earned reputation as a killjoy. This is a city-state, after all, perhaps best known for its attempts to control behavior by caning people for vandalism or imposing the death penalty for some drug offenses. Singaporean STOMPers—those who tattle on their peers—in this way join rather than challenge their government in monitoring the public.

Certain themes particularly resonate on STOMP, such as ‘bad’ behavior on public transportation, substandard hygiene, and ill-mannered foreigners. In one recent post, STOMP contributor “mav” calls out a man for taking several seats on a bus and putting his feet up:

“Not only has he taken three extra seats, his slippers are dirtying one of them.”

A more extreme example comes courtesy of a group of STOMPers calling themselves the “Kampong Boys,” who posted a photo of South Asian workers passed out from drinking in a subway station on New Year’s Eve. Comments on that post ranged from xenophobic vitriol (“So many garbage all around this once clean country…sigh!”) to more reasoned sentiments (“not all foreign workers are in this sorry state .. majority are doing fine earning a decent living”).

Just how big of an influence does STOMP have? According to the site’s editors, last year STOMP had a total of 1.2 billion pageviews and 18 million unique visitors. Singaporean journalist Kirsten Han notes that residents often joke that they are afraid to sit down in a reserved seat on mass transit for fear that they will “kena STOMP,” meaning get posted on STOMP, for taking a space designated for the disabled, pregnant, or elderly (even if the train is half empty and no one on board needs those seats)

Alex Coulston, a 26-year-old American living in Singapore, says he and his friends “half joke” that they will be “STOMP’d” if they do anything out of the ordinary in public. Coulston once participated in the Hindu celebration Holi, in which revelers throw colored dye at each other. “My friends and I were taking the [subway] home with dye all over us,” he says. “Everyone was staring, and we thought to ourselves, ‘Uh-oh, I hope we don’t get STOMP’d!’ Later, we went on the site and found photos—not of us, but of others—with the caption, ‘Why didn’t these people take a shower?’”

Han and Coulston are both critical of STOMP. Coulston describes it as “only a site for gawking and gossiping.” Han argues that while citizen journalism is important in a place like Singapore, where the mainstream media “isn’t free,” STOMP panders to small-mindedness. “The problem is that a lot of people are still drawn to it,” she says. STOMP editor Azhar Kasman’s response? “What STOMP’s citizen journalists contribute are matters that are of concern and importance to them and their community.” And STOMP has indeed won accolades, such as first place for “Best in Online Media” at the 2013 Asian Digital Media Awards.

Singapore is seeing a variety of new-ish online portals grow in popularity—including ones that question the status quo. One such site is The Online Citizen, a news portal that hosts bloggers who openly criticize state policies. As Nazry Bahrawi, the Singaporean cultural critic, wrote in 2011, “Singapore’s new media landscape [such as The Online Citizen] suggests a leaning towards political activism.” Three years later, Nazry notes the rise of critical blogs, such as New Nation, a satirical site similar to The Onion. Yet despite these outlets, he feels that Singapore is still missing insightful content that might better challenge STOMP. “Some of the commentaries in these critical blogs are polemical and lack nuance,” he says.

How Singapore Got Hooked on the Internet of Public Shame

Read More

In Singapore"s Center, but a World Away

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International New York Times.

Don’t have an account yet?
Create an account »

Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?
Learn more »

In Singapore"s Center, but a World Away

Read More

Hotel employee fined for molesting 25-year-old stepdaughter

A hotel supervisor was fined $6,000 on Wednesday for molesting his stepdaughter.

The 58-year-old admitted to placing his hand on the 25-year-old woman’s shoulder and attempting to kiss her at his Sengkang flat on Jan 16 last year.

None of the parties can be named to protect the identity of the victim.

The court heard that shortly after the victim, her mother and stepfather had returned home from shopping, the mother and daughter searched the master bedroom for a bottle of perfume they had purchased. But there was no sign of it. The mother then left the room to attend to a call.

TO READ THE FULL STORY…

Hotel employee fined for molesting 25-year-old stepdaughter

Read More

The world"s most expensive hotel breakfast? Try Singapore...

Whether with croissants, scrambled eggs or pancakes, thousands of business travellers worldwide begin their day at a hotel-owned breakfast buffet.

Despite this trend, only one third of hotels include breakfast in their basic room rates, according to a recent study by HRS Group of more than 250,000 hotels worldwide.

The remaining two thirds of hotels charge guests a premium for their morning meal, with the price reaching upwards of A$47 in Switzerland’s five star hotels.

Of the surveyed cities, Singapore was the most expensive overall with an average hotel breakfast price of A$25.85, with Switzerland and Belgium close in tow – coming in at A$24.60 and A$23.07, respectively.

Closer to home saw prices varying greatly across Asia – while Japan (A$21.66) and Hong Kong (A$21.30) weren’t far behind Singapore, China had a much more reasonable average of A$13.54, with South Korea a trifle more expensive at A$15.01.

If your business is picking up the breakfast tab for a conference, look towards India – hotel breakfasts can be had for A$6.35 in Mumbai, while the Czech Republic and Germany were the next cheapest with average respective breakfast costs of A$12.69 and A$12.52.

At the upper end of the scale, five star hotels in Belgium averaged A$42.20, while those in Germany begin to rival those of Switzerland, with average costs of A$42.52.

Interestingly, one in seven business travellers opt for an ‘early bird breakfast service’ where available, with breakfast offered prior to the regular service hours at an extra charge.

The study did not include results for Australian hotels.

Follow Australian Business Traveller on Twitter: we’re @AusBT

Free weekly business travel newsletter

Get the latest news from Australian Business Traveller delivered straight to your inbox.

About Chris Chamberlin

Chris lives by the motto that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a great latte, an opera ticket and a glass of wine!

Follow @ausbt on

The world"s most expensive hotel breakfast? Try Singapore...

Read More

Singapore students top PISA problem-solving test

SINGAPORE: Singapore students have topped an international assessment on problem solving.

This is based on results for the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

85,000 students worldwide took part in a computer-based problem-solving test.

And Singapore students beat other 15-year-olds from countries such as Japan, China and Finland.

Using a fictitious subway map, how do you get from “Diamond” to “Einstein” in the quickest way possible?

Or, plan how guests at a birthday party should be seated, based on a set of requirements.

These were some of the types of questions that students had to answer at the PISA problem-solving test.

Nearly three in 10 students from Singapore were top performers – which means Singapore has the highest proportion of top performers in problem solving.

The 1,394 students from Singapore come from 172 schools, and they were randomly selected by PISA for the assessment.

Out of the 172 schools, six are private schools, such as the Singapore American School, St Joseph’s Institution International and Alsagoff Arab School.

Andreas Schleicher, OECD’s Acting Director for Education Skills, said: “This data demonstrates that Singaporean students are not just spoon-fed. They are actually quite creative thinkers. They are actually able to engage with unfamiliar problems.”

Singapore educators consider the stellar results an affirmation of what they have been doing.

Madam Low Khah Gek, Ministry of Education’s Deputy Director-General, Education (Schools), said: “There is no specific subject called problem solving.

“Across the different subjects, the teachers take an approach where active learning opportunities are provided for students.

“So they may be involved in exploring, investigating, experimenting, and teachers give them opportunities to actually develop their ideas, come up with their own hypothesis.

“They can go test it out if things don’t turn out correct or the way they intended it to be. They can then go and modify their strategies.

“At the same time when the teachers provide students with opportunities to organise an event or work with community projects or work with their friends to do something together, it is a situation where it is unstructured, it is open-ended.

“So students have to go and find out…they have to come up with their own ideas. They have to develop a plan and can actually go and execute it.”

Mrs Ong Hong Peng, Principal of Xinmin Secondary, said: “We feel very heartened, because besides teaching in the various subject disciplines, I think our teachers are also teaching other skills that may not be tested in the exam in a very direct manner.

“That’s why we’ve come up with all these alternative programmes which will stretch students’ thinking and they’re not tested in exams.

“We have tried our very best to move away from just exam-focused type of programmes into applied learning and areas, even ICT, that are not in exams.

“All this takes a lot of commitment. That’s why we’re very heartened that these are recognised.”

One way schools encourage problem-solving is to give students real-life examples which test their application skills.

For example, by getting them to design games or to plan for a person’s retirement, based on three savings plans that offer different interest rates.

D Vinod, a Secondary 4 student from Temasek Secondary, said: “I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer in this kind of situation, because what we’re looking for is just the goal at the end, and it depends on the person’s personal expenditures.

“We have to be open-minded. We did this activity in a group and naturally in a group, we have different opinions. So, one thing about group activities is that we must all agree to disagree at one point of time and then slowly think about the best solution to the answer.

“That’s why we have to be very patient and analyse the problem very carefully to see which is the best plan to get us the best solution.”

The 2012 test is the second time PISA has included
problem-solving as an assessment area, and the first time it’s computer-based with interactive elements.

In future, it hopes to also test other areas, such as collaborative problem-solving and interpersonal skills.

OECD’s Andreas Schleicher said: “The idea of PISA is to reflect the type of skills that matters for the success of people in life and at work.

“We can see the kinds of things that are easy to teach and easy to test are also the kinds of things that are easy to digitise, automate and outsource.

“And we’re seeing, actually, big losses in employment, in tasks requiring routine cognitive skills. We’re seeing increases in tasks that require non-routine analytical skills, the capacity of students to extrapolate from what they know.

“The world economy no longer pays you for what you know. Google knows everything.

“The world economy pays you for what you can do with what you know, and that makes a very big difference.

“Innovation today is no longer about you having a great idea and being able to do it. Innovation is to do with how you can connect with the ideas of others, people who share other ways of thinking, other belief systems.

“Those are the skills of increasing importance for success. It is important for us to see to what extent they are developed in school and even out of school.”

Mr Schleicher added that in a fast-changing world, the skills that are required to be successful are also changing.

“This means that the education system needs to remain very, very active, and needs to be very sensitive to the needs of individual students and the kinds of skills that are valued by society,” he said.

Mr Schleicher added: “I think the reason why Singapore is doing well is because Singapore has very close eyes and ears of what’s happening in the world and the economy, and I think maintaining that is very critical.

“But education’s got to be a lot tougher in the future than now, because the kinds of things that are easy to teach, easy to test, are going to lose relevance. Other kinds of skills gain in prominence and relevance.

“And today’s all about innovative capacities of individuals. No country can be satisfied with its performance today.”

PISA will conduct its next round of tests next year.
 

Singapore students top PISA problem-solving test

Read More

Singapore"s OCBC offers $4.95 billion for Wing Hang Bank in bet on China growth

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd (OCBC) (OCBC.SI) has offered to pay almost $5 billion for one of Hong Kong’s last remaining family-owned banks, in a deal that would give the Singapore lender a much sought-after gateway to the Greater China region.

The deal to buy Wing Hang Bank Ltd (0302.HK) was preceded by months of negotiations, with the deadline for an agreement extended not once, but twice. OCBC formally made the offer to purchase the Hong Kong-based lender after reaching a deal with major shareholders including the bank’s founding family.

OCBC, like other foreign lenders, are drawn to China’s economic clout and the growth of its offshore yuan markets. Wing Hang, headquartered in Hong Kong, has branches in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Macau – major hubs in the prosperous and bustling Pearl River Delta.

The acquisition, OCBC’s biggest, would also help the Singapore lender narrow the gap with domestic rival DBS Group Holdings (DBSM.SI), which operates Hong Kong’s sixth-biggest bank by assets.

At the same time, China’s economic growth is slowing, prompting concerns about Hong Kong’s loan exposure to Chinese companies, particularly those in industries that are suffering.

OCBC would also be entering a highly competitive space dominated by mainland banks and global lenders such as Standard Chartered PLC (STAN.L) and HSBC (HSBA.L). OCBC said it would retain the name of Wing Hang, founded in 1937.

Still, Wing Hang’s sale process had attracted interest from suitors including Agricultural Bank of China (601288.SS), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ.AX) and Singapore’s United Overseas Bank (UOBH.SI).

OCBC is offering HK$125 a share to buy all the stock of Wing Hang, according to a joint announcement on Tuesday.

The offer came after Singapore’s second-biggest lender reached a deal with members of Wing Hang’s founding Fung family, their affiliates and related family trusts, as well as BNY International Financing Corp, to buy a nearly 45 percent stake in the bank. OCBC also reached separate deals with other shareholders, increasing its stake to 50.66 percent.

“The deal ultimately will also depend on whether the other shareholders will accept this at this price or not,” OCBC CEO Samuel Tsien told reporters in Singapore on Tuesday. “We are of the opinion that the price to be paid is fair and equitable.”

OCBC has received in-principle approval for the purchase from Hong Kong and Singapore regulators, with formal approval needed by June 30 for the deal to go through. The acquisition is not subject to the approval of OCBC’s shareholders.

If the deal goes through, there will be two family-owned banks left in Hong Kong – Bank of East Asia Ltd (0023.HK) and Dah Sing Banking Group Ltd (2356.HK).

OFFER SIZE

Wing Hang and OCBC had been locked in exclusive negotiations since December after several players walked away from the deal on price concerns, sources had told Reuters earlier.

OCBC’s HK$38.428 billion ($4.95 billion) offer announced on Tuesday is lower than expectations. Sources previously estimated the deal could be worth $5.3 billion.

“BNY Mellon is pleased to see an agreement has been reached between Wing Hang Bank and OCBC. The offer values Wing Hang at twice the book value, adjusting for the final dividend and the bank premises revaluation reserve,” BNY Asia-Pacific Chairman Steve Lackey said in an emailed statement.

“BNY Mellon believes the proposal represents the best value for Wing Hang’s shareholders and the bank as a whole and will be giving its full support to the offer.”

Yue Xiu Group, the trading arm of China’s Guangzhou city government, paid a multiple of 2.08 times to buy Hong Kong’s Chong Hing Bank (1111.HK) last year.

The adjusted price-to-book ratio of 2.0 times paid by OCBC is more comparable to other MA deals at the smaller Hong Kong banks, said Daiwa Capital Markets analysts Grace Wu and Samuel Ng in a note.

“Though the cash offer is shy of our and market expectations, given the size of Wing Hang, we believe the offer price is reasonable as it represents a 46 percent premium to WHB’s closing price on September 16, 2013,” when Wing Hang announced it is in talks for a sale.

Shares of OCBC rose 0.42 percent in Singapore trading around midday, following the announcement of the deal. Wing Hang Bank was up 0.24 percent in Hong Kong.

CHINA AND YUAN

About 6 percent of OCBC’s pre-tax earnings in 2013 came from the Greater China region. If it had owned Wing Hang in 2013, the share of the contribution would have been around 16 percent, calculations by OCBC show.

But market watchers are warning that while non-performing asset ratios in China’s banking system are at record lows of around half a percent, the number will only rise from current levels, a potential drain on profits.

Wing Hang is the biggest deal for OCBC CEO Tsien, who took the post in April 2012. The bank’s last major purchase was completed in 2010 when it bought ING Group’s (ING.AS) Asian private bank for $1.5 billion.

Last week, Tsien said at the Reuters ASEAN Summit that the bank aims to expand in Greater China which it sees as the engine of Asian economic activity, rather than in another market in Southeast Asia where OCBC is already well-entrenched.

Wing Hang was founded as a money changing business. It has since grown into a mainstream retail bank with more than 70 outlets in Hong Kong, Macau and China.

Speaking at a news conference in Singapore, OCBC Chief Financial Officer Darren Tan said the bank plans to raise equity for the deal, but added that the exact timing and size depends on the progress of the acquisition.

OCBC is also planning to utilize a mix of internal resources and new debt.

“Wing Hang is already profitable so if there is no equity raising obviously it would add to the earnings immediately,” Tan said. “Now for an acquisition of this size, sort of a cross-country acquisition, and the price that we pay for it, three years is a reasonable return period.”

OCBC is being advised by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N), and Wing Hang by Goldman Sachs Group (GS.N), Nomura Holdings (8604.T) and KPMG.

($1 = 7.7571 Hong Kong Dollars)

(Additional reporting by Saikat Chatterjee and Michael Flaherty in HONG KONG; Editing by Ryan Woo)

Singapore"s OCBC offers $4.95 billion for Wing Hang Bank in bet on China growth

Read More