Top Stock Market Highlights: Link REIT, Creative Technology and Singapore Retail Sales

Welcome to the latest edition of top stock market highlights.

Link REIT (HKSE: 0823)

Late last month, Link REIT, Asia’s largest REIT, announced that it will buy a portfolio of Singapore shopping malls for S$2.16 billion from Mercatus Co-operative, a unit of NTUC Enterprise.

Back in August, there were rumours that several REITs such as Frasers Centrepoint Trust (SGX: J69U) and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (SGX: C38U) were bidding for Mercatus’ assets.

But in the end, Link REIT secured the deal.

As part of the transaction, HK-based REIT will gain ownership of two suburban retail malls in Singapore – Jurong Point and Swing By @ Thomson Plaza.

In addition, the REIT will enter into a 10-year asset and property management agreement for a third suburban mall, AMK Hub.

Mercatus will remain the owner of AMK Hub.

Both properties enjoy almost full occupancy and generate an annualised net property income of S$106 million as of October 2022.

Jurong Point is one of Singapore’s largest suburban malls with 720,000 square feet of net lettable area (NLA) with an average footfall of five million per month.

Swing By @ Thomson Plaza has an NLA of 110,000 square feet and is located next to the Thomson-East Coast MRT Line.

Link REIT will fund the acquisition using a mixture of cash and debt, with its gearing rising from 23.2% to 27.1% as of 30 September 2022 after this transaction.

The purchase is expected to close by 31 March 2023.

Creative Technology Ltd (SGX: C76)

Creative Technology, a company that provides technical solutions for the event, experiential and installation markets, announced on 4 January that its founder and CEO, Mr Sim Wong Hoo, had passed away.

Sim would have turned 68 this year.

He founded the business back in 1981 and has led the company since its inception.

Following Sim’s demise, Song Siow Hui, president of the company’s Creative Labs business unit, was named interim CEO.

Creative Technology made history in 1991 by being the first company to list its shares on the NASDAQ Composite Index.

Three years later, the technology company dual-listed its shares on the Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX: S68).

Creative is best known for its Sound Blaster Card, launched in 1989.

At the time, the sound card was a game-changer for the industry as it opened the door for personal computers to produce high-quality sound.

For his contributions, Sim was named Businessman of the Year twice – in 1992 and 1997, during the Singapore Business Awards.

As it stands, Sim was the only substantial shareholder in Creative Technology, holding a third of its shares based on its latest fiscal 2022’s annual report.

The company, however, is now a pale shadow of its former self.

For its most recent fiscal 2022 ending 30 June 2022, it reported a 27% year on year decline in sales to S$61.3 million.

Gross profit fell by 31% year on year to S$19.5 million and the company reported a net loss of S$11 million, higher compared to the prior year’s S$7.7 million net loss.

Unfortunately, Creative Technology has reported three consecutive years of losses.

Singapore retail sales

Singapore’s retail sales posted a healthy increase for November, rising by 6.2% year on year to S$4 billion.

If cars are excluded, retail sales would have risen by 8.7% year on year to S$3.6 billion.

Of the total amount, 14.8% of the sales were made online, or around S$592 million.

The three main categories for online sales were computers and telecommunication equipment (51.4%), furniture and household equipment (34.2%) and supermarkets and hypermarkets (14.5%).

The higher online sales proportion can be attributed to year-end shopping events such as Singles’ Day and Black Friday.

The numbers are good news for Singapore’s economy as it demonstrates robust demand for consumer goods.

Yet, the outlook ahead looks cloudy for Singapore’s economy.

For 2022, the economy’s growth slowed to 3.8%, achieving just half the growth that the nation chalked up in 2021.

Worryingly, the manufacturing sector saw a 3% year-on-year contraction in the fourth quarter, the first contraction since the fourth quarter of 2020.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned that 2023 will be a tougher year compared with last year.

Global economic growth is expected to slow further to 2.7% this year from 3.2% in 2022, with one-third of the world economy projected to be in a recession.

Should this economic tsunami wash over Singapore, it could severely crimp retail sales this year and lead to a curtailing of consumer spending as more people tighten their belts.

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Disclaimer: Royston Yang does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned.

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