Tight security at Edison Chen meet

Tight security at Edison Chen meet

By Boon Chan, MEDIA CORRESPONDENT

Chen received two death threats last month.
THERE were 30 security guards. Bags were thoroughly checked, and a velvet rope barrier separated the stars on stage and the media.
The heightened security at this press conference at the Grand Hyatt Singapore hotel yesterday was because Canadian-born actor Edison Chen, 28, had received death threats.

He said: ‘I would be lying if I said I was not afraid, but I have to continue with my life. I just hope people will welcome me and welcome the movie.’

He was in town to promote The Sniper, which opens here on Thursday.

On March 11 and 12, two letters were sent separately to Hong Kong’s Cable TV station and tabloid Apple Daily’s publisher Next Media threatening him with death. Both letters were accompanied by bullets, according to reports.

Chen looked sombre yesterday, but smiled occasionally at comments by director Dante Lam, 45, and Taiwanese singer-actor Richie Jen, 42.

This was Chen’s second public appearance after visiting Singapore in February to attend the launch of Carl’s Jr’s Angus Beef Thickburger, as well as to attend sports label Adidas’ 60th anniversary party.

The actor has not appeared in public in Hong Kong since Feb 21 last year, when he apologised for a sex photo scandal. More than 400 explicit pictures of him and his partners, including Hong Kong actresses Gillian Chung and Cecilia Cheung, were leaked online.

Unlike his last visit here, which caused a tabloid media frenzy, this press conference was relatively tame. The actor said: ‘Actually, I would like to thank Singapore for welcoming me. I had previously said in Hong Kong that I would bow out of showbusiness indefinitely, but I will still fulfil my prior commitments.’

Apart from the backlash from the sex photo scandal, Chen has also had to deal with his father Edward Chen, 56, declaring bankruptcy last month.

Chen said he gave his father some financial support, adding: ‘I love my family and where I can help, I would.’

The Sniper has been seen by some as a comeback vehicle, but Chen is unsure: ‘I hope to work in showbiz again, but I will take things slow and take in the suggestions from my boss, my manager and my friends as to when I should make a return.’

Source : Straits Times - 06 April 2009

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Defiant N. Korea fires rocket, sparks outcry

Defiant N. Korea fires rocket, sparks outcry

Obama leads global condemnation; Security Council to meet today

By Kwan Weng Kin, Japan Correspondent and Lee Jun Bok

SEOUL/TOKYO: - Brushing aside warnings from the international community, North Korea launched a long-range rocket yesterday, putting another wrinkle into efforts to denuclearise the North and raising tensions in the region.
The rocket hurtled over Japan within seven minutes of liftoff at 11.20am local time from the North’s north-east coast.

For some tense moments, Japan’s military, which had been given authority to shoot down any threat to its soil, watched the rocket fly through its territory. North Korea had warned that any attempt to block its launch or intercept the rocket would be tantamount to war.

The rocket traced out its predicted flight path, dumping its first stage booster - the engine - into the ocean 280km west of Japan, and its second booster 1,270km in the Pacific Ocean east of the Japanese coast.

Four hours after the launch, Pyongyang declared it a success.

‘The satellite is orbiting Earth and transmitting the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans Song Of General Kim Il Sung and Song Of General Kim Jong Il, as well as measurement data back to Earth,’ the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, referring to praise music for North Korea’s late founder and his son, its current leader.

But the US military said that no object entered orbit. The final two stages of the rocket and its payload - the part carrying the satellite - landed in the Pacific Ocean, according to North American Aerospace Defence Command and US Northern Command officials.

The United States, Japan and South Korea believe the exercise was a cover for a test of the North’s missile technology - Taepodong-2, its longest-range missile, is designed to reach Alaska.

They view the launch as a violation of the 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution 1718.

A Taepodong-2 test failed within seconds three years ago. A UN resolution was passed after that launch, demanding that North Korea halt all ballistic missile activities and banning trade in missile-related items. There were concerns that North Korean missile technology might fall into the hands of terrorists.

US President Barack Obama said yesterday: ‘North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint and further isolated itself from the community of nations.’

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso called the launch an ‘extremely provocative act’. Japan immediately called for the UN Security Council to convene.

An emergency session of the UN Security Council is set to be held early today.

But despite the support of the US, it may be difficult for Japan to win a new resolution against the North because of reluctance by China and Russia to put additional pressure on Pyongyang.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan said the launch ‘is threatening the stability and peace of the Korean peninsula and North-east Asia’.

However, China and Russia urged all nations to ‘exercise restraint’.

Some analysts predicted that the launch could spark an arms race in the region. Some also foresaw an increased level of security cooperation between nations, including those in the South-east Asian region, to curb any attempts by the North to sell its missile technology.

‘Countries like Malaysia have always been monitoring terrorist activities, and given the history of the North Koreans on the international arms market, there is certainly a concern,’ said Professor Yu Ho Yeol, a North Korean at Korea University in the South.

Source : Business Times - 06 April 2009

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Singapore to lead Asia Reit recovery on bank funding

Singapore to lead Asia Reit recovery on bank funding

(SINGAPORE) Real estate investment trusts in Singapore and Australia will be the first in Asia-Pacific to recover from the economic slowdown on their ability to secure funding from banks, according to a new survey.

‘It’s a credit crunch, not a property crunch and by that I mean the fundamentals of the real estate market are quite good.’

- John Freedman,
UBS AG senior property analyst

Singapore has the region’s best environment for Reits in terms of property market growth and regulatory support, while South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia have the worst conditions, Sydney-based Trust Company Ltd said in the annual Reit survey it published last Friday.

‘In Singapore, every Reit has so far been able to successfully refinance debt as it’s fallen due,’ Trust chief executive officer John Atkin said in an interview here. ‘They’ve been forced to take a conservative approach by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and have been more careful with their gearing levels.’ Asia-Pacific syndicated loans excluding Japan plunged 65 per cent to US$26.9 billion in the first quarter as banks reined in lending amid the global credit crisis, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. When Singapore Telecommunications Ltd agreed to a $1.08 billion three-year loan last month to refinance maturing debt, it paid more than 10 times the interest of similar-maturity loans it signed three years ago, the data showed.

Singaporean property trusts and developers need to refinance as much as US$13 billion of debt maturing this year, the city’s The Business Times newspaper reported on April 1, citing Asian Public Real Estate Association head Peter Mitchell.

‘It’s a credit crunch, not a property crunch and by that I mean the fundamentals of the real estate market are quite good,’ UBS AG senior property analyst John Freedman said in a phone interview from Sydney. ‘The question mark is over the financing of it, and clearly more transparent markets will have a stronger chance of recovery.’ Reits across Asia-Pacific declined in the past 18 months as rents fell and the mortgage-backed securities market they use for funding dried up.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange Reit Index has plunged 68 per cent from a high of 2612.98 in May 2007, while Bloomberg’s Reit Index is down 30 per cent this year.

Australian Reits including Valad Property Group and Goodman Group have written down the value of investments and cut back spending as they repair balance sheets.

Sydney-based Goodman, whose shares slumped from a high of A$7.44 on Feb 13, 2007 to 40 Australian cents, last Friday said that it secured new leases in France at prices which matched past European rental transactions.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday cut the group’s rating to BBB from BBB+, citing the economic downturn’s impact on its biggest tenants and the company’s ‘reduced access to capital’. ‘Our market is off 73 per cent from its March 2007 peak,’ - Bloomberg

Source : Business Times - 06 April 2009

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Some get it spot on even in a volatile year

Some get it spot on even in a volatile year

This year’s rankings show independent research houses may be a better model

By CHEW XIANG

(SINGAPORE) The good thing about a crisis of this depth and scale is that no matter who you are and what happened to you, there is someone you can blame for it.

Commentators have put forward US regulators and Wall Street CEOs as pet targets, but they are a little far away and so immune from the more directly satisfying forms of retribution.

Still, there are plenty of others to go around. Structured product victims have their relationship managers, if they can still find them; and almost anyone can blame analysts, those whose frothy buy calls were so profitable - until, suddenly, they weren’t.

‘Stock investment is basically about forecasting the future,’ says Regina Lim, a property analyst with UBS. ‘Analysts will always face criticism when their predictions turn out to be wrong.’

But it takes a certain kind of genius to get things so spectacularly wrong. As this newspaper noted last month, at the beginning of 2008 every single investment house projected the Straits Times Index to end the year above 3,100, with one broker even setting a 4,800 target. As it turned out, the index finished at 1,761.

There are as many explanations as there are bad calls. ‘I think the biggest difficulty is we’ve been in a period of unprecedented volatility,’ says Thilan Wickramasinghe, who covers banks for CLSA. ‘I think no one could have predicted the speed that this crisis unfolded and the magnitude of this crisis. As analysts we base our opinions on what is available publicly.’

Cheryl Lee, another UBS analyst, offers something akin to a cri de coeur. ‘A thousand different data points could be pointing the analyst in conflicting directions. And our job is to sieve through the mountain of data and decide what is important to the company we are looking at, make a call on the stock and explain clearly our basis for this call.

‘It is a process that seems simple in theory, but is in reality much more complex.’

The truth is that when investors rely on others for their research, they do so at their considerable peril. As David Lum of Daiwa Institute of Research says, analysts ‘are wrong most of the time’.

Still, some research houses get it right, and even fewer get it right more often than the rest. This year’s StarMine’s - which was bought by data provider Thomson Reuters last year - annual broker rankings tells you just which ones did so last year and why.

For CLSA, which tops the recommendations category for STI stocks, it is its independence from its investment banking operations.

As Mr Wickramasinghe says: ‘Our main product is research. Our clients reward us with commissions based on the quality of our research and that’s all it is, as opposed to some of the larger investment banking houses where research is a loss leader for larger investment banking deals.’

‘I think it actually enables us to differentiate ourselves a lot in cycles like this. This is a much stronger business model than the traditional investment banking business model,’ he says.

The difference in models shows, says Caroline Maes, who covers shipping and marine stocks for the house. She points out they are often the first to turn negative on a stock. ‘Independent research houses are definitely a better model going forward,’ she notes.

Daiwa, which is placed after CLSA in the same category, is also ‘fairly independent’, notes Mr Lum.

‘We still have to work closely with the securities group but we’re not under that kind of pressure,’ he says. ‘It’s always a concern, but here, it’s actually the way it’s set out. The management is totally separate from the sales and investment banking operations.’

In terms of earnings estimates for STI stocks, Goldman Sachs wins the laurel, followed by UBS and Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

In the small and mid-cap coverage universe, UBS topped both the recommendations and earnings estimates categories, followed by Macquarie Research, BOA-Merrill and Citigroup.

For them, and the rest of those who got their calls spot on, was it luck - or good judgement? If you’re on the warpath for someone to blame for the crisis, avoid these guys. At least they got it right.

Source : Business Times - 06 April 2009

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Downturn gives smaller law firms crack at talent

Downturn gives smaller law firms crack at talent

Recruitment expected to rise as the big four firms retain fewer pupils

(SINGAPORE) The big four law firms here are no longer sucking up all the pupils and junior lawyers as corporate work dries up. This gives their smaller rivals a chance to recruit some talent.

Times have changed: ‘In the red-hot legal market of past years, a lot of firms were hiring anyone with a law degree and a pulse,’ says Mrs Thio, while Mr Chong says they have to be more careful with recruitment in the current climate
‘I understand that the big firms which usually scoop up all the pupils are not retaining a significant portion of them,’ said Stefanie Yuen Thio, head, corporate, TSMP Law Corporation.

‘In the red-hot legal market of past years, a lot of firms were hiring anyone with a law degree and a pulse,’ said Mrs Thio.

The big four with between 230 and 280 lawyers are Allen & Gledhill, Drew & Napier, Rajah & Tann and Wong Partnership.

Rajah & Tann told BT that it retained 35 out of its current batch of 42 pupils.

‘Our ability to maintain such strong pupil retention numbers - despite these trying times - underline our confidence that the firm is in a strong market position and will be more than able to ride out the economic storm,’ said senior counsel Steven Chong who’s also Rajah & Tann’s managing partner.

‘As always, starting salaries for the current batch of retained pupils will remain very competitive and in line with the pay levels of our main competitors,’ he said.

The firm has already hired a number of lawyers this year said Mr Chong, adding ‘obviously we have to be more careful with recruitment in the current climate.’

An Allen & Gledhill spokeswoman said that the firm takes in between 20 and 30 pupils.

Both Drew & Napier and Wong Partnership declined comment for this article. According to Drew & Napier’s website, it currently has no openings for lawyers.

‘Clients are not willing to pay for large teams of lawyers with expertise in each specific area of law,’ said Mrs Thio.

‘I understand that some very reputable firms are retrenching,’ she added.

TSMP, a medium sized firm with 40 lawyers currently has three pupils in its litigation unit, with an additional two (transfers from a large firm) joining it shortly, she said.

Colin Ng & Partners said that the 60-lawyer firm is enjoying a surge in pupil applications. It recruits up to three pupils each year.

‘We see more applications from young lawyers and pupils who are currently at some of the bigger law firms,’ said Wong Shyen Sook of Colin Ng & Partners.

‘The other obvious change is that we see more applicants expressing interest in the litigation practice. As compared to previous years, most of the applicants were applying for corporate positions,’ said Ms Wong.

For the past several years, the big four would take in practically all the 240-250 law graduates from the National University of Singapore as pupils and the retention rate was typically at least 80 per cent. Pupillage at a law firm is a requirement before law graduates become lawyers.

Smaller firms found it hard to compete with the high $2,000 monthly allowances paid to pupils during their six-month training stint and the subsequent starting salaries of between $4,500-$5,000.

Even when they were willing to pay similar salaries, it was hard to match the reputations of their bigger rivals.

‘The big law firms, in good times, they just take everything. It’s like the buffet table, we couldn’t even get to the table,’ said Max Ng, managing director, Gateway Corp, a boutique legal practice with eight people.

Gateway has been getting applications from pupils, who were told they would not be retained at some of the law firms, he said.

‘We couldn’t get any pupils before. For lack of a better word, they’re available now,’ he said.

Smaller law firms say that they are still able to hire because they had not expanded as fast during the boom years. They also point to litigation and dispute resolution as growth areas in the present recession.

‘Clients are moving to us from bigger firms because we’re more cost effective,’ said Mr Ng. Gateway’s hiring and its starting salaries are in the $3,000 plus range, he said.

TSMP said that it had cut expenses elsewhere to attract top young talent.

The firm’s starting pay is $5,000 per month, said Mrs Thio and its partners’ salaries were kept deliberately low to maximise cashflow for the firm.

The downturn may help ease the shortage of lawyers. Said Alan Tan, vice-dean (research & graduate studies) NUS law faculty: ‘Remember that we have been having a shortage of lawyers for many years now, so the current economic climate is probably helping to create a market equilibrium of sorts.’

Source : Business Times - 06 April 2009

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Sentosa dream gets hazy

Sentosa dream gets hazy

Fewer than 1,000 homes at Sentosa Cove are likely to be completed by end of 2009; several developers are delaying their projects further

By UMA SHANKARI AND NISHA RAMACHANDANI

(SINGAPORE) It was supposed to be Asia’s answer to glitzy Monaco, but plans to remake Sentosa into an island playground where rich foreigners and locals live and play are going to take longer than expected to materialise.

While key hotel projects and the Resorts World at Sentosa integrated resort are largely on schedule, things are not going as well at Sentosa Cove, the stretch of land on the island set aside for mainly residential use.

The plan was for some 2,500 oceanfront villas, waterway bungalows, hillside mansions and upscale condominiums to be built on the 117-hectare site. Earlier projections were that the bulk of the new homes would be ready by 2010.

But industry sources now say fewer than 1,000 homes are likely to be completed by the end of this year, and several developers are expected to delay their projects further.

City Developments, for example, has postponed its $580 million project comprising luxury apartments, shops and a five-star, 320-room Westin Hotel, originally slated to open this year.

One problem is that sales and prices of new homes on the island have dropped sharply in the last two quarters, exacerbated by the number of foreigners leaving Singapore.

Sentosa Cove was popular with foreigners as they could get permission to own land there with relative ease.

‘The bulk of purchasers of luxury homes, both on the mainland and on Sentosa, were foreigners,’ said Tay Huey Ying, director for research and advisory at Colliers International.

Colliers’ data, based on caveats lodged, shows that only one non-landed residential unit in Sentosa was sold in Q4 2008. In the first three months of this year, the number rose slightly to eight.

This is a far cry from transaction volumes at the height of the property boom in 2007. In Q1 2007, some 279 non-landed homes were sold in Sentosa. In Q2 that year, the transaction volume was 243.

Prices have also come down. Colliers’ data shows that the transacted price of non-landed properties at Sentosa Cove averaged $1,318 per square foot (psf) in Q1 2009 - down 45.8 per cent from the peak average of $2,431 psf recorded exactly one year ago in Q1 2008.

It should be noted, however, that these averages are based on small transaction volumes of eight units for Q1 2009, and 33 units for Q1 2008.

Occupancy levels are low too. Even for properties that are completed and fully sold, not every unit is occupied, said Nicholas Mak, director of research and consultancy at Knight Frank. At the fully sold The Berth by the Cove, which obtained its temporary occupation permit in 2006, occupancy is at 93-94 per cent, but market watchers say islandwide, the occupancy levels are much lower.

The picture is, however, somewhat brighter for other new and upcoming developments on the island.

Luxury hotel Capella Singapore, which opened its doors last week, is seeing strong demand - despite the fact that room rates start at $750. ‘Response in our first week has been very positive, with an average of about 70 rooms per night,’ revealed general manager Michael Luible. The hotel has 111 rooms.

Mr Luible acknowledged that the hotel would not escape the effects of the economic slowdown, but pointed out that its guests are high net worth individuals who will continue to travel. ‘We will, of course, monitor the economic situation carefully and plan our strategies accordingly,’ he added.

Resorts World at Sentosa remains on-track for its soft opening, which will see Universal Studios, four of its six hotels as well as the casino ready in Q1 2010.

The four hotels - Hotel Michael, Maxims Tower, Festive Hotel and Hard Rock Hotel - will add about 1,350 rooms to Singapore’s inventory. The rest of the resort, which includes a spa and Maritime Museum, will open progressively thereafter.

Indeed, hopes are now pinned on the integrated resort which is designed to draw in visitors.

According to Suzanne Ho, deputy director of communications for Sentosa, foreign visitor arrivals have dipped since last September, in line with the downward trend of tourist arrivals into Singapore.

The lower visitor numbers are affecting food and beverage operators adversely. Ken Hasegawa, manager of Japanese restaurant Si Bon, reckoned that revenue has fallen by about 20 per cent recently.

Similarly, at Cool Deck, a bar along Siloso Beach, business is slow. Selina Huang, Cool Deck’s assistant manager, attributed the decrease to falling tourist arrivals. Just three months ago, close to 90 per cent of the bar’s clientele were tourists, most of whom stayed at the Rasa Sentosa Hotel. Now, only 40 per cent of patrons are tourists, she noted.

The decrease in demand is prompting some outlets to modify their pricing. Even il Lido Italian Restaurant has cut prices by about 20 per cent on average in response to a 40 to 50 per cent decrease in revenue over the past three months. Its seven-course meal now costs $120 instead of $180, and it has removed some expensive items - such as truffles and caviar - from the menu.

Additional reporting by Victor Philip Katheyas

Source : Business Times - 06 April 2009

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Mindy Yong

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