Singapore's plan to explore a top-up tax for multinational enterprises may weigh on some units of Jardine Matheson Holdings as it gets a majority of its revenue from Greater China. Others that may suffer include City Developments Limited - which makes about 8 per cent of its revenue from the Americas and about 10 per cent from Europe, the Middle East and Africa - and ComfortDelGro, which gets about 23 per cent from EMEA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
"The move may impact some companies even as it is preliminary," said Mr Justin Tang, head of Asian research at United First Partners."The Government clearly has a plan, but it's best for investors to take a wait-and-see approach as more details will trickle out over the coming days."Real estate stocks took a hit from Singapore's move to increase the minimum monthly salary for foreign workers, as well as tightened rules for the number of foreign work permit holders.
Shares of CDL, one of Singapore's biggest developers, pared gains of as much as 1 per cent to end the day up 0.4 per cent. UOL Group wiped out an advance of as much as 0.7 per cent.on the wealthy, and higher levies on residential properties from 2023. That will likely weigh further on CDL, which counts The Residences at W Singapore Sentosa Cove among its properties, and on other developers.
In addition, the increase in income tax rates for top earners will affect some clients of the wealth management units of DBS Group Holdings, OCBC Bank and UOB.