Daily Briefing: Can Uber afford to lose in Singapore?; Companies privatise due to high costs

And here's the top e-commerce site in Singapore.

From Bloomberg Finance:

It might appear a small thing, but every little bit counts when the stakes are so high. 

With Qantas Airways Ltd. ditching the Middle East and returning to Singapore for its Sydney to London flights, Uber can't afford to be the No. 2 ride-hailing app of choice on the kangaroo route hub.

Besides, the anti-Uber alliance cobbled together by SoftBank Group Corp., Grab and Didi includes Ola, which is giving bumper-to-bumper competition to Uber in India.

Losing a second billion-people-plus market to a local incumbent would be a body blow. But if Khosrowshahi can't win the battle for Singapore, defending the remaining crown jewel of the empire might become that much harder.

From The Motley Fool:

It is well known that the cost of undergoing an initial public offering is often huge, due to underwriting and legal fees.

However what many investors may not be aware of is that the ongoing cost to keep a company public is also, in fact, significant.

In an Ernst and Young study conducted in 2011, US listed companies spent $2.5 million annually to maintain their status as a public company.

These additional costs could be related to additional compensation to the Chief Financial Officer(CFO), maintaining an in-house investor relations executive. There are also additional costs associated with quarterly shareholder events.

From e27:

According to a study by iPrice, the king of e-commerce in Singapore in terms of traffic is Qoo10 with 8.4m average monthly visits, based SimilarWeb statistics. 

The Giosis owned ecommerce site recorded nearly double the traffic of Alibaba-backed Lazada.

This maybe because Qoo10 established themselves in Singapore earlier than Lazada. Although Qoo10 reigns supreme in the traffic arena, there are other parameters that other e-commerce merchants stand strong on.