Daily Briefing: Temasek eyes stake in China's HNA; 3 in 5 unemployed workers are women

And here's why HDB leases near expiry can only be saved by a bailout of a "wall" of cash.

From Reuters:

According to two unnamed sources, Singapore's Temasek Holdings is eyeing a stake in the debt-saddled Chinese conglomerate HNA.

"HNA, the aviation-to-financial services conglomerate, has been selling selling overseas real estate and some of its biggest financial and strategic investments following a $50 billion acquisition spree over the past two years.

Since the start of the year, the group has agreed to sell more than $10 billion in prime real estate in Australia, New York and Hong Kong, along with shares in Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and hotel properties in the United States.

Temasek and HNA have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore business partnerships in aviation and logistics, they said in a statement on Tuesday, but did not give any specific timeframe or details of the partnerships."

Read more here.

From iCompareLoan via Yahoo! Finance:

According to socioeconomic commentator and retired banker Chris Kuan, HDB flat owners whose leases are near expiry can only rely on a bailout through a "wall of money."

"HDB is reminded of the ticking time bomb that it is since a notable letter was published in the Straits Times about seniors having troubles selling their older HDB flats. But it is also something of a political 'big bazooka' (to borrow the famous term used by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi).

The 'big bazooka' is descriptive of how most rich-economy central bankers began printing money to buy assets to stimulate growth during severe recessions. Massive amounts of capital flowing out of the economy to the emerging markets in anticipation of quantitative easing is known as the Wall of Money or the 'global search for yield'.

Only in our case, the ‘wall of money’ will be to bail out HDB flat owners. How so, you may wonder."

Read more here.

From Human Resources Online:

In the small group of Singaporeans that work full-time but earn less than $2,000 per month, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy found out that 63% of them are female and have a median age of 35 years.

"Based on a research sample of 1,626 Singapore workers, about 70 of them were considered severely underemployed. This group of underemployed were typically female (63%) and of a median age of 35 years. A majority of them (61%) also had no children.

They had 10 to 15 years of working experience and were employed at businesses that serve mainly the domestic market. They also came largely from the health and social services sectors – followed by financial services, transport and education sectors."

Read more here.