Daily Briefing: Fuel shortage in Asia pushed Singapore oil prices to a 3-year high; Starhub welcomes new CEO

And Golden Gate Ventures joined a $19.9m funding for a Singapore care-giving startup.

From Reuters:

A persistent crunch in supply of fuel oil to Asia driven by reduced shipments from exporters like Iran and Venezuela has pushed a key fuel’s cash premium to Singapore prices to a three-year peak, with levels expected to stay high for another month.

The reduced shipments from exporters including Iran and Venezuela pushed the cash premium for the 380-centistoke (cst) grade of fuel oil to $7.23 which is the highest since mid-2015.

The Asian cash premium for the 380-centistoke (cst) grade of fuel oil, typically used to power ships, hit US$5.28 a ton on Friday, its highest since mid-2015.

Between January and June this year, Singapore imported a monthly average of 475,000 tonnes of fuel oil from South America including Brazil, versus 810,000 tonnes in the same period in 2017, data from the World Flows Explorer on Thomson Reuters Eikon showed.”

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

After plunging about 42 percent this year, StarHub Ltd. shares may be set for a modest turnaround, just as incoming Chief Executive Officer Peter Kaliaropoulos takes over next week.

“There is a bottom,” Ramakrishna Maruvada, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Group Inc., said in an interview. He upgraded the shares to hold from sell last week, citing the plunge this year as evidence that the challenges from rival carriers and from entertainment platforms like Netflix Inc. have been adequately discounted.

Earnings per share probably slumped 38 percent to $S0.03 in the quarter ended June, according to the average analyst estimate, an eighth straight quarter of decline."

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From Deal Street Asia:

Golden Gate Ventures joined a US$4.15m funding round for care-giving startup Homage that will be used for professional training and development programmes of the firm.

"Singapore’s home-based care-giving startup Homage today announced the closing of a US$4.15m ($5.66m) Series A round co-led by Golden Gate Ventures and HealthXCapital.

Other investors participating in the round, the startup said in a release, are existing investors SeedPlus, Juha Paananen, Lim Dershing and Huang Shao-ning.

Homage provides licensed practitioners with a platform to offer on-demand services for the elderly in Singapore. The city-state, like many developed countries in Asia, is facing myriad challenges caring for a rapidly ageing population."

Read more here.