Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.

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Laundering Bags and Jewels to Auction

The hammer will fall September 7, when Hotlotz opens online bidding on more than 300 handbags and 250 pieces of jewelry from the S$3 billion ($2.4 billion) money laundering case. The stuff is expected to fetch to S$3.9 million ($3.1 million). The goods, including Chanel and Dior bags, Graff and Van Cleef jewels, come from a stash of more than 1,000 luxury items stored at Le Freeport in Changi, and are viewable by appointment. Rolex, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille pieces will come in later rounds. Real estate brokers SRI, Edmund Tie and Knight Frank will also be flogging 80 of the more than 200 seized properties, many on Orchard Road and Sentosa, through mid-2027. One Sentosa sea-facing plot has already gone for about S$22 million ($17 million), almost half what the Fujian-connected group paid for it. Deloitte, appointed receiver by the Singapore Police Force in July 2025, says the composition of each phase is still being finalised. The ten offenders, all originally from China, have been already been convicted and deported.

Read more: CNA (auction schedule), Business Times (Sentosa plot price)

Police Raid Radiant World

Radiant World founder Pinkesh Nahar and Tanas Capital managing director Amit Sharma were named as defendants in a High Court suit filed August 24 by trade-finance platform Incomlend, which wants more than US$34 million back in a case listed as "tort of deceit conspiracy by unlawful means." Neither the company nor the two defendants had lawyers on record as of the filing. The next hearing is set for September 29. The suit comes a few days after Singapore police raided the iron ore trader's office and questioned staff in the wake of complaints about invoices its bankers say may have been faked. Mizuho Bank is already in court to get an injunction, and the US Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are working through transactions involving Radiant World and its creditors. Several major commodity traders have also cut ties with the company. Radiant World says it holds itself to "the highest commercial and legal standards" and “won’t litigate through the media.” No criminal charges have been filed as of this morning.

Read more: Business Times (Incomlend lawsuit), Business Times (police raid)

US Sanctions Name Three Firms Tied to Iran Oil

Mansoor Tayabbhai Gandhi, 51, now has three companies under his name on the US Treasury sanctions list. Trans Arctic Global Marine Services was sanctioned in July 2025 for helping the National Iranian Tanker Company move millions of barrels of Iranian crude through the Strait of Malacca into Singapore's eastern outer port limits. Arc Chartering and Hong Kong-based Sky Oil and Gas Asia were added on Aug 24 as fronts allegedly acting on his behalf. A fourth firm, Azure Shipping, was reportedly responsible for ship-to-ship transfers with sanctioned vessels tied to the same Iranian tanker company before Mansoor passed ownership to Muhammad Sidek Mohideen Shahul Hamid last October. Sea-Dragon Marine Services is still chasing Mansoor and Trans Arctic Global in court for more than $1.3 million in unpaid bills tied to services provided to Tag Marine, a firm he directed until it was deregistered in November 2023.

Read more: Business Times

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Bloomberg Drops Ministers Defamation Appeal

Bloomberg's window to appeal the S$230,000 ($178,000) defamation payouts owed each to Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam and Trade and Industry Minister Tan See Leng closed on August 28, and the news outlet let it pass without making a filing. That means that the July High Court ruling that found "malice, falsehoods and wrongful conduct" in a December 2024 article connecting the ministers' Good Class Bungalow purchases to money laundering concerns will stand. Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei also owe S$423,000 ($327,000) in legal costs on top of the S$460,000 ($356,000) in damages. Asked how the payout would be split with its reporter, or whether payment had been made, Bloomberg declined to comment.

Read more: CNA

ICSID Opens Office for Tribunal Pitch

ICSID, the World Bank's investment dispute arm, opened its first staffed overseas office on Aug 26. The office, run by chief counsel Frauke Nitschke and three other lawyers is at 10 Marina Boulevard with a second presence at Maxwell Chambers Suites. Law Minister Edwin Tong used the launch to push forward Singapore's bid to host the Multilateral Investment Tribunal that’s being drafted at UNCITRAL's Working Group III.

Read more: Business Times (trade uncertainty), Business Times (MIT bid)

Electronics Output Growth Cools in July

Factory output was up 6.8% year-on-year in July, a softening from June's 7.5%. The electronics cluster grew 11.2%, roughly half June's 21.1% pace, with infocomms and consumer electronics finding themselves up 51.7% and semiconductors up 8%. Electronics output fell 3% month-on-month for a second straight reduction; it was dragged down by softer semiconductor production.

Read more: Business Times

MOM Makes Ice Packs and Cool Water Mandatory

Cool drinking water, emergency ice packs, breathable clothing and heat stress training will get moved from recommended to mandatory for outdoor workers starting December 1, according to the Ministry of Manpower. The rules will apply to every outdoor job site regardless of the temperature, closing a gap that previously left these decisions to employer discretion. Non-compliance will come with stop-work orders and fines. Construction, logistics and manufacturing companies will have three months to install water points, stock ice packs and run training sessions before the December 1 deadline turns (failed) inspections into penalties.

Read more: CNA

Frasers Shareholders Approve S$2.1B Split

Shareholders voted 99.07% to approve Frasers Property's S$2.1 billion ($1.6 billion) reshuffle of Frasers Hospitality Trust, which was taken private in October 2024 and is now being sorted into four categories for divestment, redevelopment, or retention. TCC Assets, the vehicle of Thai magnate Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi that holds 86.9% of Frasers Property, abstained from the vote, while a related TCC Group Investments entity agreed to buy the S$1.1 billion tranche of mature, lower-yielding stabilised assets. Completion is targeted by the end of FY2026, pending the usual regulatory and third-party approvals.

Read more: Business Times

MUIS Writes Child-Protection Rules for Mosques

MUIS will roll out a child safeguarding rules for all mosques after a 37-year-old self-styled religious mentor, sentenced in mid-August, was convicted of raping one boy and molesting his brother after taking the pair in from a vulnerable family. The framework adds training for mosque staff and volunteers to recognise signs of abuse, standardised reporting and escalation protocols, in addition to a "risk recognition approach.” Periodic audits and spot checks, run with District Offices, will review CCTV coverage, lighting, visibility and signage.

Read more: CNA

Gupta Tells Boards to Ditch 1,000-Page Reports

Piyush Gupta (currently Keppel's non-executive chairman) told the Singapore Institute of Directors' annual conference that boards facing heavier regulatory demands shouldn't "reset" into pure policing mode but ought to "preset" back to their original job of protecting shareholder value. His evidence for overload is bank audit and risk committee reports that he says can run to 1,000 pages, even burying the information that directors need to act on. His fix, borrowed from his DBS days, is an executive summary built on what he called an "open the kimono" (are we allowed to say that?) culture at DBS, where management flagged the important issues instead of drowning the board in paper.

Read more: Business Times

Bank Stocks Drag STI as Rally Cools

The Straits Times Index turns 60 in 2026 having beaten the S&P 500, its 23 per cent total return year-to-date topping Wall Street's 18 per cent and the Nasdaq's 20 per cent. The two ETFs tracking it, SPDR STI and Amova Singapore STI, had pulled in S$5.4 billion ($4 billion) by July 10. On August 26 the index dropped 0.2 per cent to 5,721.59. The drag came from the same tickers that built the index's reputation. DBS slipped to S$76.24, OCBC to S$31.44 and UOB to S$40.95. Each was down no more than 0.4 per cent, but that was enough to outweigh a 1.2 per cent rise in Sembcorp Industries to S$6.12. DBS alone is now worth more than Deutsche Bank, Barclays or BNP Paribas.

Read more: Straits Times (STI 60th history), Business Times (regional index moves)

Singapore and Vietnam Start a Leaders' Club

Chan Chun Sing sat down with Communist Party of Vietnam heavyweight Tran Cam Tu at Conrad Singapore Marina Bay this week for the inaugural Singapore-Vietnam Strategic Dialogue, pitched by Chan as an "enduring platform" for candid talks and for next-generation officials to build ties. The two sides renewed a study-visit agreement between their foreign ministries letting CPV officials train with Singapore's public service. The meeting also identified leadership development as an area to improve exchanges by comparing how each country goes about grooming senior officers.

Read more: Business Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

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