Daily Briefing: Home sales hit 7,220 units in Q3 YTD; Grab to form JVs with SoftBank-backed firms for SEA expansion

And logistics provider CWT's deputy CEO will step down after 18 years.

From iCompareLoan:

New home sales in Q3 YTD totalled 7,220, data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) revealed. This was supported by the recovery in September sales bringing in 932 units for the month after effects of the cooling measures have subsided.

“Whilst demand exuberance is restrained by existing measures, developers are also observed to be phasing out their launches, drip-feeding the market with supply so as to react to market movements accordingly,” CBRE said.

The increase in new homes sales was due to a pick up in new projects being launched which generated interest among buyers leading to more transactions. An estimated 3,273 new private homes were sold in Q3 2018 which is 38.3% higher than in the second quarter and 22.9% higher YoY.

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From Deal Street Asia:

Grab was asked by SoftBank to form joint ventures with companies that are backed by the latter’s Vision Fund that are eyeing to enter Southeast Asia, according to a Bloomberg report.

Grab president Ming Maa recently said SoftBank aims to create a “unicorn farm” by bringing unicorns backed by the Vision Fund to the region. 

“Our core strategy with SoftBank is to create a unicorn farm [in Southeast Asia]. It is taking the unicorns in the Vision Fund and bringing them to Southeast Asia. There will be an explosion of partnerships in the next 12 to 24 months,” Maa said at a panel discussion at the South China Morning Post’s China Conference held in Kuala Lumpur.

Grab has been pursuing several this year such as HappyFresh, Ping An Good Doctor, Yahoo! and Moca, all of which have accelerated Grab’s expansion into new markets and business areas.

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From Reuters:

Deputy CEO Adam Slater of commodity logistics provider CWT announced that he will resign after nearly 18 years at the Singapore unit of China’s HNA group.

Sources said in September that HNA is in talks with banks to find a buyer for CWT, less than a year after it acquired the business in a $1 billion deal.

Adam Slater said in an email to Reuters that he was stepping down after “about 30 years in the biz” and that his departure was not connected to any potential developments at HNA.

Read more here.