Daily Briefing: Temasek advances in bid for Philippine hospital group; Blue Planet buys Indian waste processing company

And nearly half of Singaporeans has been hit by a cyberattack in the past year.

From Reuters:

Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings and buyout firm KKR are amongst the suitors who have advanced to the second round of an auction to buy into the hospital unit of Metro Pacific Investments, sources told Reuters.

The unit, which operates 14 hospitals, many of which are among the largest and most modern in the Philippines, had attracted interest from more than a dozen investors.

The sale comes as global investors scout for targets after raising billions of dollars in the last few years.

Southeast Asia - home to a large number of fast-growing companies - is viewed by investors as an attractive prospect, due to strong healthcare spending.

Last month, Metro Pacific announced plans to sell a minority stake in its unit at a valuation of up to $3.44b (US$2.5b), which could make it the country’s biggest healthcare deal.

Read more here.

From DealStreetAsia:

Blue Planet Environmental Solutions has acquired Indian organic waste processing company, Xeon Waste Managers LLP (Xeon) for an undisclosed sum, according to an announcement.

The move comes shortly after the Singapore-based company announced a strategic acquisition of a UK-based green building product manufacturing company, Virtus Concrete Solutions. Xeon’s innovation is a containerized solution that converts organic waste into energy.

The compact unit, called EnergyBin, processes segregated organic waste including food scraps, garden clippings, vegetable peels and organic sludge on site, a solution for urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

Founded in 2017, Blue Planet is a sustainable waste management solutions enterprise with an operational footprint across Singapore, India, Vietnam and the United Kingdom.

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia:

Singaporeans' cyber hygiene still has some room for improvement if the latest findings from the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) are anything to go by.

In the Cybersecurity Public Awareness Survey 2018 released on 11 September, almost half (48%) of respondents had experienced at least one cyber incident in the past 12 months.

Cyber incidents can include being hacked, having one's data stolen or receiving a lot of pop-up advertisements. Persistent pop-ups are a common sign of malware infection, CSA said in its media release.

More than a third (36%) of respondents reported receiving multiple advertisement pop-ups after visiting some webpages whilst 15% said they were a customer of an organisation that had its data stolen - the top two cyber incidents reported in the survey.

For those who were victims, 66% indicated they changed their passwords whilst 44%said they reported to the organisation in question.

Read more here.