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 magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
NATURAL INTERRUPTION: As cables deteriorate, core wires snap in progression along the cable, which does not happen if they are hit by an anchor, an official said Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) immediately switched to a microwave backup system to maintain communications between Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) after two undersea cables malfunctioned due to natural deterioration, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told an emergency news conference yesterday morning. Two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county — the No. 2 and No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cables — were disconnected early yesterday morning and on Wednesday last week respectively, the nation’s largest telecom said. “After receiving the report that the No. 2 cable had failed, the ministry asked Chunghwa Telecom to immediately activate a microwave backup system, with
RSS