SINGAPORE: Those hoping to win the Toto New Year Draw formed long queues at Singapore Pools outlets islandwide on Friday (Jan 5).

This year’s prize has snowballed to a whopping S$9.7 million, as the three preceding draws had no Group 1 Prize winners. 

The bets, opened since Tuesday, will close on Friday at 9pm with the draw taking place at 9:30pm. 

By 9am on Friday, queues were already forming at an outlet at Yishun Avenue 5, which has been touted as one of the luckiest betting outlets in Singapore. 

“Now it’s no longer lucky because they changed the door’s direction and affected the Feng Shui,” said a senior citizen who gave her name as Mdm Ang. 

“But I come here to buy because I live nearby,” she added. 

Another punter Mr Chen, who was waiting for his sister told Channel NewsAsia that even though there was a queue, it was fast moving. 

“My sister is in the queue to buy for me because she has better luck. So we usually will get the luckiest people to queue for us,“ said Mr Chen. 

“She joined the queue with about 50 people in front and was out in about 10 mins,” he added. 

The queues are expected to become longer throughout the day.  

SINGAPORE: Property developer CapitaLand has announced that it will divest its stakes in a group of companies that hold 20 retail malls in China for about S$1.71 billion, as part of a broader effort to enhance its portfolio.

In a statement released before trading opened on Friday (Jan 5), CapitaLand said the malls have an average gross floor area of about 40,000 sq m excluding car park space, and are spread across 19 cities.

Here is the full list of the 20 malls included in the transaction: 

The malls are targeted for completion in the second quarter of this year and CapitaLand said the transaction is expected to generate net proceeds of around S$660 million, as well as a net gain of around S$75 million.

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The company stressed that the loss of recurring income arising from this transaction “will be limited”, as these 20 malls accounted for approximately 4 per cent of the company’s total portfolio and 7 per cent of its China shopping mall portfolio valuation as of Jun 30, 2017.

President and Group CEO of CapitaLand Lim Ming Yan said with China “on the cusp of transformative changes to its retail industry”, the company is seizing this window of opportunity to reconstitute its mall portfolio.

“We will continue to invest in dominant assets in core Chinese city clusters, where we already enjoy a competitive advantage,” he said.

“The rejuvenated portfolio will enable CapitaLand to respond more effectively to the paradigm shifts in Chinese consumer behaviours, and strengthen our position as we continue to tap the growth in China’s rapid urbanisation,” Mr Lim added.

In 2017, CapitaLand opened a record 1 million sq m of retail space across eight developments in Singapore, China and Malaysia – its largest retail space offering in a single year.

It capped the year by unveiling Suzhou Center Mall, the developer’s largest mall in its portfolio last November. 

In the same month, CapitaLand announced a joint venture with its Chinese shopping mall real estate investment trust CapitaLand Retail China Trust (CRCT) to acquire Rock Square Mall, an 83,591 sq m shopping mall in Guangzhou.

NEW YORK: Oil rose on Thursday to its highest since May 2015, on concern about supply risks due to unrest in Iran and another decline in U.S. inventories as refining activity hit a 12-year high.

U.S. oil stocks fell more than expected, continuing a steady drawdown of supplies in the world’s largest oil consumer, though stocks of distillates and gasoline rose on heavy refining activity driven in part by year-end adjustments.

However, cold weather across much of the country was expected to keep demand high, as heating oil prices were just off highs not seen since early 2015.

Brent crude , the international benchmark, rose 5 cents to US$67.92 a barrel as of 1:53 a.m. EST (1853 GMT) after hitting a high of US$68.27 earlier in the session. U.S. crude rose 34 cents to US$61.97, after earlier hitting US$62.21, its highest since May 2015.

Freezing weather in the United States has spurred short-term demand, especially for heating oil. Heating oil futures were down 0.8 percent to US$2.0712 a gallon; the contract hit highs not seen since February 2014 earlier in the week.

U.S. crude stocks fell by 7.4 million barrels in the last week of 2017, exceeding expectations, as refiners boosted activity to their highest rate since 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.

“The draw was fairly in line with what we’ve seen in the latter half of 2017,” said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData in Louisville, Kentucky. U.S. crude stocks have dropped by more than 78 million barrels since the middle of 2017 to 424.5 million, the lowest since September 2015.

Anti-government protests since last week in Iran, OPEC’s third-largest producer, have added a geopolitical risk premium to oil prices, though the country’s production and exports have not been affected, sources said.

Apart from a spike in May 2015, oil is trading at its highest since December 2014 – the month after a decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to stop cutting output to support prices.

Analysts at JBC Energy said the price reaction to the Iranian unrest was overdone, while Swiss bank Julius Baer said prices projected “an overly rosy picture” that left the market at risk of profit-taking.

OPEC, supported by Russia and other non-members, began to reduce output a year ago to remove a glut built up in the previous two years. Compliance has been high, aided by involuntary declines in Venezuela, where the economy is collapsing, plus unrest in Nigeria and Libya.

Producers have decided to extend the supply pact until the end of 2018.

OPEC’s cuts are helping reduce global inventories, even as production continues to rise in the United States, where OPEC efforts are spurring more output from shale. U.S. production rose to 9.78 million barrels in the last week.

(Addtional reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by David Goodman and Rosalba O’Brien)