Daily Briefing: Housing loans shrink for third straight month in April; Over 270 F&B outlets to phase out straws by July

And heavy demand met First Sponsor Group’s $147.6m rights issue.

From iCompareLoan:

Preliminary data from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) showed that housing loans fell in Singapore for a third month in April.

The fall in housing loans resulted in a continued drop in consumer loans. Bridging loans and mortgages booked in April on a net basis amounted to $202.76 billion, lower than the $203.38 billion posted in March.

With housing loans accounting for about three-quarters of consumer lending, overall consumer loans fell to $264.57b in April from $264.67b in March.

Read more here.

From Channel NewsAsia:

More than 270 food and beverage (F&B) outlets in Singapore will phase out plastic straws by 1 July, providing only on request or for specific medical reasons the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced on Monday (Jun 3).

This includes 53 F&B outlets owned by Accor Group, which operates hotels like Raffles, Swissotel and Fairmont, 24 Pastamania outlets, dozens of outlets operated by Wildlife Reserves Singapore and 15 eateries under the Spa Espirit Group including Tiong Bahru Bakery and 40 Hands.

"This is the largest industry commitment so far that addresses the excessive use of plastic disposables in Singapore," said Ms Lotika Mehta, campaigns manager of WWF-Singapore.

The move is part of the PACT (Plastic ACTion) initiative by WWF, which is supported by the National Environment Agency and Zero Waste SG.

People in Singapore use about 2.2 million straws daily, according to a 2018 report by AlphaBeta, The Final Straw and the Cyan Project.

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

The $147.6m rights issue of First Sponsor Group had been oversubscribed.

This comes as the mainboard-listed property developer received a total of 117.12% of valid acceptances and excess applications for the 113.6 million convertible securities with warrants available at the close of rights issue on 24 May.

First Sponsor had previously said that it will use the proceeds from the rights issue to finance expansion plans.

The rights issue will see shareholders receive 3.98% subordinated perpetual convertible securities that are pegged at $1.30 each. The perpetual securities could be exchanged for common shares, which come with an initial conversion price of $1.30 each.

Shareholders will also enjoy a bonus issue of one warrant for every 10 existing common shares that they hold.

Read more here.