Daily Briefing: Land sales benefit today's generation; 10 questions to ask before closing a property deal

And merchant commodity fund slumps steeply.

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam clarified the issue of government surpluses during the last night of campaigning for GE 2015, reported Channel NewsAsia. One notion that has emerged, he said, is the government is actually making a very large surplus and hiding it away in reserves and why dont we use this secret surplus instead on all the good things? Read more here.

Five years ago, Gerald Tay was invited to co-invest in the joint-development of a hotel in Singapore. Investors would fund the development costs and share profits after selling the hotel to a potential buyer when it was completed. The equity share was 51% for the principal deal finder (finds the deal and raises the money), and 49% for the remaining joint investors. Find out more here.

The Merchant Commodity Fund, managed by Doug King and Michael Coleman, fell 10.6 percent in August as commodities slumped, wiping out gains for the year. The fund lost 10.3 percent in the first eight months of 2015, Coleman confirmed via e-mail from Singapore, declining to comment further. Read more here.