New all-time closing and intraday highs during holiday-shortened week

Date: December 29, 2025

• The STI crossed 4,600 and set new record highs last week
• How Wall St fared – all major indices rose for the week
• Mandatory offer for Alpha Integrated REIT at S$0.48 per unit
• Victor Lim reinstated as Fu Yu’s director of strategy
• For week to 15 Dec institutions were net sellers while retail investors were net buyers: SGX Research
• Factory output up 14.3% in Nov but falls short of expectations

 

STI rose to new all-time highs above 4600

The Straits Times Index last week rose above the 4,600 level for the first time ever, setting a new all-time high closing of 4,638.97 on Tuesday and a new all-time intraday high of 4,647.45 on Friday.

In a holiday-shortened week, volume regularly dipped below S$1b daily and there were few corporate developments to engage traders who had not left for the holidays.

As it turned out, the index finished Friday at 4,636.15, a net gain of about 67 points or 1.5% for the week.

How Wall St fared – all major indices rose for the week

Wall Street on Friday closed out the penultimate week of the year with a solid advance. Trading volume was low following a truncated session on Christmas Eve and a market holiday on Christmas.

The biggest headline of the week was the U.S. Q3 GDP report. According to a first estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the quarter saw annualized growth of 4.3%, well above the consensus figure of +3.2%.

Experts noted a few cracks in the data, namely, weak income and a decoupling between economic growth and employment.

For the week, the S&P 500 added 1.4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.2%. The blue-chip Dow climbed 1.2%.

Mandatory offer for Alpha Integrated REIT at S$0.48 per unit

Mindarie Investment, a wholly owned subsidiary of Swiss-based Volare Group, on Tuesday launched a mandatory conditional cash offer for all issued and outstanding units of Alpha Integrated Real Estate Investment Trust (AI-REIT) at S$0.48 per unit.

The move comes after Volare acquired a significant stake of AI-Reit, formerly known as Sabana REIT from ESR Group, triggering the mandatory offer threshold of 30% under the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers.

On Tuesday, Volare entered into a sale and purchase agreement with ESR Group and E-Shang Infinity Cayman Limited to buy approximately 241.6 million units in AI-REIT.

Following the acquisition, Volare and its concert parties now control an aggregate of roughly 464.3 million units, representing 41.27% of the total issued units.

As the group’s shareholding has crossed the 30% threshold, it is legally required to make a mandatory general offer for the remaining units it does not already own.

The offer is conditional upon Volare receiving valid acceptances that would result in Volare and its concert parties holding more than 50% of the voting rights in AI-REIT.

Volare intends to maintain the listing status of AI-REIT  and has no plans to introduce material changes to the REIT’s business, redeploy fixed assets, or initiate any major changes to investment policy or discontinue the employment of existing employees.

The offer follows a period of significant restructuring for the REIT, formerly known as Sabana REIT. It was renamed Alpha Integrated REIT on Oct 23 this year following the internalisation of its management function.

This is also not the first offer launched by Volare. In February 2023, the group launched a voluntary conditional cash partial offer at S$0.465 per unit.

UOB is acting as the financial adviser to the offeror.

Victor Lim reinstated as Fu Yu’s director of strategy

Components manufacturer Fu Yu has since Nov 1 reinstated its largest shareholder Victor Lim as director of strategy, a role he held for four years before leaving the company in March.

The nominating committee is currently reviewing a fresh application for directorship appointment made by Lim, a central figure in a boardroom dispute surrounding Fu Yu this year.

Lim had repeatedly attempted to oust and replace company directors since January and made an unsuccessful directorship bid himself.

The decision to reinstate Lim to the role was made after considering his “ability to contribute to the group”, said Fu Yu said.

Lim has also replaced Fu Yu’s fired group chief executive officer David Seow as the legal representative of several of the company’s wholly owned subsidiaries in China.

Seow is in the meantime seeking some S$2m in claims from Fu Yu for alleged wrongful termination and defamation, following his dismissal in October for gross default and misconduct.

Lim was a key figure in a boardroom dispute at Fu Yu that resulted in all of the company’s independent directors resigning in June, leaving Seow as the sole director.

He was also involved in a probe into the company’s supply chain arm, Fu Yu Supply Chain Solutions. The unit came under investigation when an internal audit uncovered, among other issues, that it made unverifiable arrangements for a US$3m payment to a third party, for which services did not appear to have been provided.

For week to 15 Dec institutions were net sellers while retail investors were net buyers: SGX Research

According to data provided by SGX Research and published in Business Times on23 Dec, for the week to Monday 15 Dec, institutional investors were net sellers of S$45m worth of local shares whilst retail investors were net buyers to the tune of S$130.8m.

The top net institutional buys were SATS, OCBC, City Developments (CDL) and UOB whilst the top net retail buys were DBS, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (YZJ), Singtel and Semcorp Industries.

The top net institutional sells were Singtel, DBC, Keppel DC REIT and YZJ whilst the top net retail sells were SATS, CDL, CapitaLand Investment and UOB.

Factory output up 14.3% in Nov but falls short of expectations

Singapore’s factory output jumped 14.3% year on year in November, led by a surge in the volatile biomedical cluster, but fell short of private-sector economists’ median estimate of 15% in a Bloomberg poll.

It also marked a slowdown from October’s revised 28.9% growth.

Excluding biomedical manufacturing, industrial production growth was 4.6% year on year, sharply down from October’s revised 15.5% growth.

And on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, manufacturing output fell 10.2%, in contrast to October’s revised figure of 11.2% growth.

Moody’s Analytics economist Denise Cheok maintained her full-year GDP growth forecast  at 4.2% expecting Q4 growth to slow as front-loaded demand – which had temporarily boosted regional manufacturing – “is set to roll back in the coming months”.

She expects factory output to “remain volatile” heading into 2026.

“While demand for chips and other peripheral products driven by the AI boom is offsetting some of the impact from US tariffs, it is uncertain how long this will last,” she said.

For 2026, Maybank economist Brian Lee expects Singapore’s manufacturing to be supported by the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) capital expenditure, easing monetary conditions and expansionary fiscal policies.

Strong manufacturing growth in October and November could also mean a “notable acceleration” in fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth for 2025, he said, with a “likely upside” to Maybank’s “already bullish” full-year forecast of 4.2%.