Latest news with #TheBusinessTimes
Business Times
21 hours ago
- Business
- Business Times
Pelita Air to start flying between Jakarta, Singapore from Aug 18
[SINGAPORE] Indonesian carrier Pelita Air will be commencing flights between Jakarta and Singapore from Aug 18, indicated the airline's website. This marks the first venture into the international market for Pelita, which has been serving domestic routes in Indonesia, its home base. The Business Times earlier reported that the airline will likely be taking over Jetstar Asia's check-in premises at Terminal 4, after the exit of the Qantas-owned budget carrier, and will use Sats as its ground handler and inflight caterer. The passage between Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and Singapore's Changi Airport was the eighth-busiest international route in the world in 2024, according to data from flight analytics platform OAG. Passenger traffic on the route grew 4 per cent compared to 2023, though it was still 26 per cent down from 2019, before the Covid pandemic. The daily flight from Jakarta will leave at 7.10am local time and land in Singapore at 10am, according to Pelita's website. The return flight will leave Singapore at 11am and reach Jakarta at 11.50am local time. Pelita Air owns 13 Airbus A320 aircraft, alongside three ATR 72s and one ATR 42. Delays in delivery of six A320s have resulted in the carrier expecting only four of those planes this year, said a February report by Jakarta's Bisnis. The airline was initially formed in 1970 by Indonesian oil and natural gas giant Pertamina. It provided air links to the state-owned company's various oil and gas drilling locations across Indonesia. It then became a charter operator, but relaunched scheduled flights in 2022 after 17-year hiatus. Today, it serves 17 domestic destinations including Jakarta, Kendari and Sorong, indicated its website.
Business Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
PropertyGuru says business has logged double-digit per cent growth in a year
[SINGAPORE] Lewis Ng, who took over as chief executive at PropertyGuru in March, has had a busy four months. But he is back on familiar ground, having spent six years as chief business officer of the online real estate portal from 2014. In his first media interview since taking up the CEO post in March, he told The Business Times that PropertyGuru's revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) grew by double digits between June 2024 and June this year. (The company's last announced adjusted Ebitda was S$6.8 million for the quarter ended Jun 30, 2024.) Ng said: 'We made decisions to exit parts of our business that were a bit further away from our core business, which actually was quite costly … And as a result, we restructured and removed some of those costs, (which) drove a significant impact to our profitability.' He was referring to the shedding of non-core businesses such as Sendhelper and PropertyGuru Finance. The move, announced in February, led to the cutting of 174 jobs. This came two months after PropertyGuru was delisted , following a US$1.1 billion acquisition by EQT Private Capital Asia, a unit of the Swedish private equity (PE) manager. PropertyGuru's shares were converted into the right to receive US$6.70 a share, which was a 7 per cent premium to the last close the day before the announcement. However, that US$6.70 was below the company's listing price of US$8.33 on Mar 18, 2022. A positive growth trajectory in Malaysia and resilient property demand in Vietnam are also powering the South-east Asian proptech firm's top and bottom lines. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up No publicly-available financial reports Since the acquisition by EQT which led to its December 2024 delisting, PropertyGuru has not needed to make its financial reports publicly available. A check at the website of Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority indicated that PropertyGuru last filed its annual report on Dec 31, 2023. In its last earnings report filed on Sep 4, 2024, it reported that its net loss had widened to S$16.1 million for the second quarter, from S$6.5 million in Q2 2023. Ng declined to comment on whether the company has since turned profitable. PropertyGuru uses adjusted Ebitda as its key bottom line metric on the grounds that it reflects more accurately the underlying performance of the business. Adjusted Ebitda was a 47.8 per cent jump from the corresponding quarter in 2023. Revenue rose by 10.3 per cent to S$40.7 million, driven mainly by higher contributions from its marketplaces segment, which was buoyed by improving conditions in Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore, PropertyGuru said then. Given the positive impact shedding the non-core businesses is having on its bottom line, Ng said the company has been 'very judicious and deliberate' with its investments and areas of focus. Instead of, say, a return into adjacent businesses such as mortgages, it has been pumping resources to launch artificial intelligence (AI) features. These include providing AI support to property agents so they can position their listings better. No stress As for whether working for an owner that is a private equity (PE) firm is giving him extra stress, Ng appeared to view it as a badge of honour. PE firms 'are effectively looking for great companies with excellent potential and looking at creating value, so that there's a return for them and their investors. That's the bottom line', he said. He is no stranger to working in a company owned by PE firms. In his first stint at PropertyGuru between 2014 and 2019, American PE giants TPG Capital and KKR owned about half of the real estate portal. PE companies such as TPG, KKR and EQT invest in businesses in return for owning a stake. Often, the PE firms are actively involved in the management of their portfolio companies, with an eye on driving up their profitability and then selling them off for a profit. Of PropertyGuru's two biggest markets of Singapore and Malaysia, Ng said he is particularly excited about the latter. Referring to and he said: 'One of the big opportunities for us is Malaysia, where we own the No 1 and No 2 platforms. There's a great opportunity for us to help deliver more value to our customers on both platforms, and we've historically not done a lot with that.' The company is now looking into integrating the back ends and systems of the two platforms, so that customers can access them more seamlessly. Ng, referring to the property market in Malaysia being vibrant, said that interest in Johor is being fuelled by the special economic zone jointly set up by Johor and Singapore; there have also been more listings for Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Over in Vietnam, economic uncertainties brought about by the US trade tariffs have not hurt home-buying sentiment, he said. While the rapid changes in tariffs 'definitely affect sentiment, they still don't affect the desire of people to own property'. The growing number of visitors to PropertyGuru's Vietnam platform signals that interest in real estate is still there, even if transactions may have slowed. When the US announced a broad range of reciprocal tariffs in April, Vietnam had the third-highest levy in South-east Asia, at 46 per cent. This has since been cut to 20 per cent , although neither Vietnam nor the US have published official term sheets on the trade deal that has been arrived at. As for the outlook for PropertyGuru's earnings growth, Ng said the company will focus on serving its two key customer groups: real estate agents and developers, and the home buyers and renters. The biggest downside risks come from rising inflation and interest rates, he said, as these could hurt demand for homes.
Business Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
High gold prices ‘a nightmare': French luxury jeweller Boucheron's CEO
[SINGAPORE] The European Union and the United States may have averted a trade war when they made a tariff deal this week, but manufacturing costs remain a nightmare for French luxury jeweller, Boucheron. This is because gold prices have been rising steadily – up almost 40 per cent year on year and close to 70 per cent from five years ago. Yet, the maison has only raised prices by 3 per cent annually, just like it did before gold prices started spiking, says its chief executive officer, Helene Poulit-Duquesne. 'We do not pass on to clients the rise in cost of production, which I believe is a good way of treating them,' says Poulit-Duquesnet over a teleconference call from France in early July. Speaking to The Business Times in conjunction with the launch of Boucheron's latest high jewellery collection, she added candidly, 'It's (also) a nightmare for us because we have to cut our margins'. A piece from Boucheron's latest Carte Blanche high jewellery collection. PHOTO: BOUCHERON Despite that, the Kering-owned brand, which does not disclose sales figures, must be doing extremely well, as Poulit-Duquesne is 'very happy' with its performance. Boucheron's business has been growing strongly everywhere apart from Europe, where things have been 'difficult'. Since she took the helm after leaving Cartier as its director for international client and business development a decade ago, the avid horse rider has done much to raise the brand's profile and expand its business. Boucheron has more than doubled the boutique count from about 40 to some 95 stores around the world, with 17 in China and three in America – all opened within the last six years. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up More men are also wearing jewellery today – a trend Poulit-Duquesne says started in Asia – and something she'd been fighting for, for years. 'We were really the first, five years ago, to put high jewellery on men and at that time, all the journalists were super surprised. But it was not for the purpose of creating collections for men but because we thought our jewellery is above gender. Then two years later, all the competition decided to put high jewellery on men.' High jewellery continues to be 'super resilient' in the face of a gloomy economic environment as its buyers consider items in the category to be an investment. The segment's boom led Poulit-Duquesne to expand capacity by acquiring a high jewellery workshop with about 60 artisans in late 2023. This takes care of its ability to produce jewellery for the top-end of the market for the next 10 years. For Boucheron, high jewellery refers to pieces priced above 250,000 euros (S$371,553), fine jewellery to those priced between 50,000 and 250,000 euros and jewellery for those below 50,000 euros – which makes up over 80 per cent of its turnover. The maison launches two high jewellery collections every year – Histoire de Style in January, where creative director Claire Choisne casts a fresh eye on archival designs, and Carte Blanche in July, where she has total creative freedom. Impermanence, like previous Carte Blanche high jewellery collections, uses unusual and avant-garde materials. PHOTO: BOUCHERON Its latest Carte Blanche collection, Impermanence, was inspired by the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi and the art of ikebana. The very innovative, 28-piece collection is designed around six delicate botanical compositions. Like previous collections, they are crafted from unusual and avant-garde materials such as borosilicate glass, ceramic, rock crystal and Vantablack coating – said to be the darkest material on earth. But is it justifiable for Boucheron to charge top-end prices for non-precious materials? 'At Boucheron, we have a precise answer to that,' says Poulit-Duquesne. 'We question what is precious, because what gives value to the piece is not only the precious materials we're using, but the emotion that the product gives to our clients. This allows Claire to use pretty much every material in the world and the reason why she's so innovative.' She says the maison sees its products as works of art – which some of its clients are collecting. 'Of course, we use diamonds and precious metals, but it's just like when you buy a painting, you don't think about the price of the materials used. What you buy are the aesthetics, the poetry, the emotion.'
Business Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Hongkong Land back in the black with H1 underlying profit of US$297 million
[SINGAPORE] Hongkong Land posted an underlying profit of US$297 million for the six months ended Jun 30, reversing from a net loss of US$7 million in the corresponding year-ago period. Excluding the impact of non-cash provisions for its build-to-sell segment in China, H1 underlying profit stood at US$320 million, 11 per cent higher than the US$288 million recorded the year before. In an interview with The Business Times on Tuesday (Jul 29), Hongkong Land's chief financial officer Craig Beattie said market sentiment in Hong Kong has improved significantly in the first six months of this year, led by the huge jump in capital markets activity. Rents in Hong Kong have been on the decline for five years, and that is unlikely to continue, he added. 'The uptick in capital markets activity combined with rents being at a level that many occupiers feel this is a good point to really jump (in)... has meant that we've seen an improvement in inquiries. 'When you start to see some very savvy (and) large financial firms securing their presence in Hong Kong for the long term, I think people sit up and start to realise that maybe this could be the bottom of the market.' A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Tuesday, 12 pm Property Insights Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond. Sign Up Sign Up Vacancies on a committed basis for the group's portfolio declined to 6.9 per cent as at end-June, compared to 7.1 per cent at the end of 2024. This was also lower than the 11.8 per cent vacancy in Hong Kong's wider Central Grade A office market. In Singapore, the group's office portfolio 'continued to perform well and was effectively fully let', Hongkong Land said. Rental reversions were positive, with average rents increasing to S$11.40 per square foot (psf), compared to S$11.10 psf for the same period in 2024. The group uses underlying profit in its internal financial reporting to distinguish between ongoing business performance and non-trading items, as its management considers this to be a key measure that provides additional information on the group's underlying business performance. Revenue for the first half of 2025 fell to US$751.2 million, down 23 per cent from US$972.4 million year on year as the group winds down its build-to-sell business . Including net non-cash valuation movements, the group recorded US$221 million in profit attributable to shareholders, compared to a loss of US$833 million in H1 2024. Underlying earnings per share for H1 2025 stood at US$0.1351, from an underlying loss per share of US$0.0031 in H1 2024. The board is proposing an interim dividend of US$0.06 per share, unchanged from a year ago. Giving an update on its capital recycling efforts, Hongkong Land said that, as at Jun 30, it has secured 33 per cent of its US$4 billion target. This includes the sale of office floors and retail space in One Exchange Square to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for US$810 million. 'Capital recycling continues to be prioritised to reduce net debt and increase investment capacity, with a number of significant initiatives currently under way.' On the build-to-sell segment, the group said the outlook is 'expected to remain challenging with weak sales levels across most cities on the Chinese mainland'. 'Stimulus measures have had a limited impact on improving broader market sentiment outside of Tier 1 cities. Profit contribution is likely to be substantially lower in the second half of 2025 due to lower profit margins on completed projects.' The group's Landmark retail space in its Hong Kong Central portfolio will continue to be impacted by renovations in the second half of 2025, although this is expected to be 'partially offset' by scheduled re-openings in the fourth quarter. Asked about the impact of tariff uncertainty on the group, Beattie said that in terms of capital recycling, for strategic transactions where buyers see long-term value, those deals will continue to move forward. 'Given the fact that Hong Kong has been in a difficult place but hopefully (is) now coming out of that… I think a lot of investors are perhaps thinking this could be a time to pivot back into this part of the world.' Speaking on whether Hongkong Land still plans to divest MCL Land, Beattie said the group's Singapore property development arm is 'a very strong business overall'. 'Most of our projects are almost effectively fully sold. Whether there (are) opportunities for a buyer to take over the custodianship of our business... we'll just have to see. There's a number of options that we're looking at (in) the moment.' Shares of Hongkong Land closed 2.1 per cent or US$0.13 higher at US$6.39 on Tuesday, before the H1 results were announced.
Business Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Malaysia's banks missed the digital moment, and now AI is forcing a reckoning, says veteran banker
[KUALA LUMPUR] Malaysia missed a crucial opportunity between 2018 and the Covid-19 pandemic to modernise its banking sector and become a regional digital leader. As that window closed, industry players now face greater challenges to achieve growth, said veteran banker Andrew Sheng. 'Between 2018 and the pandemic, that was the time for a huge transformation online. Especially during pandemic, everyone moves online – work, shopping and finance. That was when banks needed to go all in on digital, but we missed it,' the 79-year-old former central banker and currently an adjunct professor at the University of Malaya and Tsinghua University told The Business Times. He noted that while other markets were embracing rapid technological upgrades, driven by competition, user expectations and regulatory shifts, many Malaysian banks remained conservative, slow-moving, and hesitant to innovate. 'That was the time for a huge transformation online. But the digital offerings of Malaysian banks, in my view, are slightly dated,' he said. Sheng previously served as chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong from 1998 to 2005, and held roles as a central banker with both the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Bank Negara Malaysia. Sheng also acted as chief adviser to the China Banking Regulatory Commission. In recognition of the impact he made, Time magazine included him among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am Asean Business Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies. Sign Up Sign Up Sheng noted that some of the country's largest banks had previously shown ambition beyond national borders, particularly CIMB and Maybank with their regional expansion strategies. But even those forward-looking moves lost momentum in recent years. 'Since 2018, they have become more cautious… And then came the pandemic, when digital transformation should have been accelerated. But I don't see agentic offerings. My bank knows my spending patterns, but it's not giving me tailored investment advice or proactive digital tools,' he added. The shortcomings go beyond the lack of advanced digital products. Sheng points to fundamental failures in basic customer service – failures that expose the sector's resistance to modernisation. 'Some of the banks are still in this old-fashioned call centre model,' he said. 'When you call them in the middle of the night, you either get somebody in Bangladesh or the service just isn't available.' Even basic digital tools such as chatbots, which are widely deployed across South-east Asia, remain underused or poorly implemented in Malaysia. He described this as a systemic issue – one rooted not in technology, but in culture and governance. 'Getting a bank to move digitally when most of the staff are less digitally oriented is a major management challenge. The boards and CEOs need to be totally digitally focused. But most are made up of former bankers or businesspeople. They see the threat, but they don't internalise it. 'TechFin' is eating the bankers' lunch Former central banker Andrew Sheng said: 'Platforms using crypto, blockchain, and decentralised finance are eating the banks' lunch. And that trend is only going to accelerate.' PHOTO: ANDREW SHENG While Malaysian banks stagnated, technology platforms surged ahead, not just supporting finance, but redefining it, and Sheng believes the real disruption isn't traditional fintech, where banks adopt tech tools, but what he calls 'TechFin' – where tech companies disrupt finance from the outside. 'Since Covid, the dominant issue is not fintech – it's the financialisation of technology. It's TechFin rather than FinTech. The tech platforms overwhelm the finance industry,' he explained. The competitive imbalance is stark, with tech companies having better software, more data, less regulation, and far more agility than traditional banks. Furthermore, they do not carry much debts. Banks, on the other hand, are highly leveraged, highly regulated, and can't seem to compete, he said, noting that such a scenario isn't theoretical. Across Asia, consumers now use mobile-based QR code systems, which are operated by tech firms, not banks – to transact in real time, said Sheng, adding that the beneficiaries aren't the banks, but e-wallet providers such as Alipay, WeChat Pay, or even small fintech startups. This disruption extends far beyond payments. Sheng warns that even core financial activities, lending, wealth management, insurance, are being unbundled and digitalised by faster, leaner players. 'Platforms using crypto, blockchain, and decentralised finance are eating the banks' lunch. And that trend is only going to accelerate,' said Sheng, who is set to deliver the keynote address at MyFintech Week, Malaysia's flagship fintech event, scheduled for early August. Tokenisation is the next frontier With a population of just 33 million, Malaysia lacks the market size to build scale slowly. PHOTO: AFP Compounding the threat is the rapid evolution of tokenised digital assets, which Sheng believes is a development that will radically transform capital markets and trade. Yet again, Malaysia is playing catch-up. 'Practically anything can be tokenised today… Liabilities, assets, and even a scribble by the next Picasso can be turned into a digital asset and sold,' he said. Tokenisation, enabled by blockchain and decentralised infrastructure, allows assets to be divided, digitalised, and traded globally in real time. Gold, carbon credits, and even commodities such as palm oil are now being explored as tokenised products. 'If palm oil could be tokenised and made available to someone like me to buy a ton because I like the weather, why not?' Sheng said. 'But the reality is, I can't do it right now in Malaysia. Someone else will.' And that's the real danger. He noted that if Malaysia does not act, others will dominate the digital asset space, and consequently, Malaysian capital, investors, and talent will go elsewhere. 'If you're not going to do it, someone else will… The money and the flows will go elsewhere,' he added. With a population of just 33 million, Malaysia lacks the market size to build scale slowly. Countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, with over 100 million people each, are better positioned to develop digital ecosystems quickly and able to attract regional liquidity. Power shift to asset managers Non-bank players such as Citadel and Jane Street, which have grown into trading behemoths that rival conventional banks in volume and influence. PHOTO: REUTERS Beyond Malaysia and South-east Asia, Sheng observed that the global financial system is undergoing a quiet but profound power shift, away from conventional banks and towards dominant asset managers and trading platforms. 'Technology tends to concentrate. The top five banks in any country dominate most of the banking business. But the top five asset managers, not necessarily banks, are now just as powerful, if not more,' he said. He noted that while large banking institutions such as JPMorgan and UBS remain influential, their growing strength lies less in traditional lending and more in their roles as global asset managers and market traders. He cited UBS' increasing weight in asset management and JPMorgan's dominance across the dollar market, investment banking, and trading. Sheng also highlighted the rise of non-bank players such as Citadel and Jane Street, which have grown into trading behemoths that rival conventional banks in volume and influence. He noted that such a trend is being accelerated by digitalisation and scale. Technology amplifies the advantages of incumbents with deep data, large capital bases, and global reach, pushing smaller or slower institutions further to the margins. At the same time, he warned, banks in emerging markets such as Malaysia are falling behind in digital transformation, leaving them vulnerable. 'Every bank needs to ask: how do we cut costs, improve productivity, manage risk, and create new value?' Sheng said. 'Those who don't ask that question now may not be around to answer it later.'
