Singapore’s central bank has banned some of the city-state’s biggest financial institutions from selling structured notes after they improperly marketed US$367 million of the bonds that were linked to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The 10 banks and brokerages can’t sell structured notes for between six months and two years, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement late on Tuesday.
The 10 banned financial institutions are: DBS Group, UOB Kay Hian, OCBC Securities, ABN AMRO’s Singapore branch, Maybank Singapore, CIMB-GK Securities, Hong Leong Finance, DMG Partners, Phillip Securities and Kim Eng Securities.
The central bank said some of the institutions assigned risk ratings that were inconsistent with warnings stated in the prospectus for the notes, and salespeople were ill trained to sell the notes.
The Lehman collapse last fall led to a default on the dividend payment of some of the bonds, most of which had a maturity of five to seven years and a yield of about 5 percent.
About 10,000 investors bought S$520 million (US$367 million) of the notes, and financial institutions have compensated about 4,000 of them, the central bank said.
Similar structured notes were sold in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia.
CASINO DELAYED
Meanwhile, the opening of Singapore’s first casino has been put back several months because of shortages of labor and materials, the chairman of developer Las Vegas Sands said yesterday.
Sheldon Adelson said Marina Bay Sands would open early next year for its initial phase, after being originally due to welcome its first visitors by the end of this year.
“The opening date we seriously anticipate will be in January or February,” Adelson said at a ceremony marking the finishing of construction of the development’s three 55-story hotel towers.
“We can’t control the flow of sand to make concrete with, we can’t control the availability of steel ... and we can’t control the availability of labor due to other projects that are in the market,” he said.
Adelson yesterday put the total cost of the development at S$8 billion.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
CRITICAL MOVE: TSMC’s plan to invest another US$100 billion in US chipmaking would boost Taiwan’s competitive edge in the global market, the premier said The government would ensure that the most advanced chipmaking technology stays in Taiwan while assisting Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in investing overseas, the Presidential Office said yesterday. The statement follows a joint announcement by the world’s largest contract chipmaker and US President Donald Trump on Monday that TSMC would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next four years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US, which would include construction of three new chip fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center. The government knew about the deal in advance and would assist, Presidential
RSS