Strategy Shifts, Profits Shrink
Singapore's economic strategy gets an eighth pillar, SIA's India bet proves costly, SGX lands a major listing, and 1MDB's ghost haunts the banks.
Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.
Strategy Review Adds an Eighth Pillar for a Cracked World
The Economic Strategy Review's final recommendations (32 of ‘em) were delivered on May 13 with a section that didn't exist in the January midterm. The new eighth focus area, “building economic resilience,” refers to energy supply and supply chain risks. When the midterm was presented, MTI had recently upgraded its 2026 growth forecast to 2-4 percent and the Strait of Hormuz was open. Now the Homefront Crisis Ministerial Committee is coordinating the government's response, and Singapore's Q1 economy has become smaller by a third of a percent quarter-on-quarter. The rest of the report mostly elaborates on January's ideas. It returns to the AI solutions hub, workforce agility, how to get more cutting-edge investment, and taking "bold bets" (many of which will never be expected to pay off).
Read more: Business Times (Hormuz vulnerability), Business Times (stakeholder engagement), Business Times (physical AI)
SIA's India Bet Keeps Getting More Expensive
Singapore Airlines saw record revenue of S$20.5 billion ($16.1 billion) for the year ended March 31, then watched net profit fall 57.4% to S$1.18 billion ($927 million) as Air India reported a S$3.56 billion ($2.8 billion) loss, of which SIA absorbed S$945 million ($743 million). The cascade at the Indian carrier is a stress test nobody wanted. Pakistan shut its airspace to Indian airlines in April 2025, the AI171 crash in Gujarat killed 260 people, and the Iran war has since forced Air India to cancel nearly a third of its peak-summer international flights. Campbell Wilson, the longtime SIA executive installed as Air India's CEO, resigned in April, though he will stay on until the board finds a successor. KPMG wrote (politely) of "indicators of impairment" on the investment but stopped short of a write-down. CEO Goh Choon Phong said its a "long game" with "no shortcut," and then declined to say whether SIA will inject more cash beyond the S$880 million already committed, leaving that conversation for "fellow shareholders." Air India is reportedly looking for at least 100 billion rupees (S$1.47 billion) in renewed support from SIA and Tata.
Read more: CNBC (SIA stake breakdown), Ts2 Tech (jet fuel), Fortune (passenger volume), Travel and Tour World (rupee loss figure)
SGX Lands a Whale With Beijing's Fingerprints
DayOne, the data center business spun out of Shanghai's GDS Holdings, is planning a dual listing on both the SGX and Nasdaq that would raise $5 billion and value the company at around $20 billion. That would make it one of the biggest SGX listings in a decade. Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are advising. The company had originally lined up a New York-only IPO before SGX officials talked it into a co-listing. The exchange had to go recruiting for its own marquee deal. DayOne rebranded from GDS International in January 2025 and runs hyperscale campuses in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, and Finland. Under the SGX-Nasdaq framework announced last year, companies valued at more than S$2 billion ($1.5 billion) can file a single set of paperwork to list on both bourses, with at least 15 percent of the IPO value on SGX.
Read more: Financial Times (SGX dual-listing rules), Ilsole24ore (Malaysia expansion), Manila Times (Series C backers), Cryptobriefing (GDS retained stake)
Advertisement:
1MDB's Ghost Comes for the Banks
The High Court approved winding-up orders for four BVI-registered entities tied to the 1MDB scandal on May 15, clearing Kroll liquidators Angela Barkhouse and Toni Shukla to file claims against Standard Chartered and BSI Bank's Singapore operations. The entities, Alsen Chance Holdings, Brightstone Jewellery, Brazen Sky and Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners, were placed into liquidation in the BVI between December 2021 and March 2024. The liquidation move is a workaround. An earlier ruling found that Singapore's Model Law on cross-border insolvency blocked foreign representatives from bringing avoidance claims on transactions that happened before its 2020 introduction, so the liquidators got local winding-up orders to pursue the pre-2020 deals instead. In March, Justice Aidan Xu rejected both banks' efforts to intervene, deciding they had no standing as contingent creditors based on the possibility of future costs orders.
Read more: Business Times
Lee Returns to Guangxi After a Decade
Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong heads to Guangxi and Shanghai on Monday for a five-day trip, his first time back in Guangxi since 2014. The delegation includes officials from the digital development and manpower ministries. Shanghai stops are planned at companies working on AI and other tech. Bilateral trade was S$162.9 billion ($124 billion) in 2025, 11.7 percent of Singapore's global merchandise trade, and the city-state has been China's largest foreign investor by inflows since 2013. Lee's visit comes in the wake of PM Lawrence Wong's March trip to Hainan for the Bo'ao Forum.
Read more: AsiaOne (Zhangjiang AI island), Business Times (JPMorgan summit)
Fake PM, Real Money
A deepfake Zoom call impersonating PM Lawrence Wong, President Tharman, Canada's foreign minister, and the senior diplomatic adviser to the UAE president cost a victim S$4.9 million ($3.8 million). The con opened with a WhatsApp from someone posing as the secretary to the cabinet, inviting the target to an urgent meeting with Wong. The Zoom room was populated with AI-generated stand-ins for BlackRock and Dubai International Financial Centre representatives, and the pitch involved funding tied to the Strait of Hormuz. Police have since been able to get footage of the call, but this is a remarkable tale of how much things have changed lately in the world of fraud.
Read more: South China Morning Post
Loan Sharks Discover the Gig Economy
Johor-based loan shark syndicates found a workaround for Singapore's CCTV problem. They recruit Malaysian delivery riders on Telegram, pay them up to S$100 ($77) a job, and let the gig economy do the harassment. Malaysian and Singapore police arrested 35 people in an operation announced on May 15, including riders and mule account holders, after a New Straits Times report exposed the thing. The method of choice was deliveries of pork products to Muslim borrowers, packaged as "surprise gifts" so riders had plausible deniability about the contents. Several were held after recipients made police reports.
Read more: CNA
MAS Lets Grown-Ups Buy Their Own Derivatives
MAS confirmed rules on May 15 that drop the mandatory financial advice requirement before most retail investors can buy complex products like structured notes, derivatives, and investment-linked policies. The hand-holding will have to remain for any investors that meet two of three criteria: investors aged 62 or older, not proficient in English, or educated below O or N-level. Everyone else can get pre-transaction alerts reminding them to read the documents, AND a nudge toward a learning module if want to better understand the waters they are swimming in.
Read more: Business Times
H&M Packs Up Marina Bay for KL
H&M has moved its Southeast Asian headquarters from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, with about 80 of 256 regional roles cut in the process. The Swedish retailer announced the move to staff on May 11. Six outlets are still open in Singapore, where H&M says it stays "an important market" with a "long-term commitment" to its retail presence.
Read more: Business Times
One-North Buyers Bring Checkbooks
Hudson Place Residences sold 201 of its 327 units on launch weekend at an average S$2,458 ($1,870) per square foot. All 14 three-bedroom deluxe units were snapped up in addition to almost 90% of the four-bedroom premiums. Ninety-nine percent of buyers were Singaporeans or PRs, most of them owner-occupiers, with interest from the western corridor and HDB heartlands like Punggol and Sengkang. The take-up puts neighboring Bloomsbury Residences to shame. That development only managed about 25 percent at its April 2025 launch. PropNex says that comparable launches in the area are going to be priced 20 to 30 percent higher after this result.
Read more: Business Times
Melbourne Gets Superjumbo, Frankfurt Gets a Snub
Singapore Airlines is making the A380 a year-round fixture on the Melbourne run for the first time since 2019, keeping the 471-seat superjumbo on daily SQ237 and SQ228 flights through at least March 2027. Frankfurt’s now bereft of the aircraft entirely over the winter schedule, dropping to Boeing 777-300ER service with frequencies pushed to as many as 20 weekly flights to cover the capacity gap. Frankfurt's First Class cabin will remain, but the Suites product is gone; travelers who specifically booked the A380 may end up in the older 2013 First Class instead (check your booking!). Melbourne passengers that previously booked on the 777 are going to get bumped up into the 2017 Suites cabin. Starlink installation is planned for the A350 and A380 long-haul fleet beginning in Q1 2027 through 2029.
Read more: Aviationa2z (seat capacity gap), Travel and Tour World (Starlink rollout)
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.
If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.