Stocks to watch: Keppel, Vallianz, A-Reit

THE following companies made material announcements either before the start of trading on Monday or after the market closed on Friday.

Keppel Corp: In a major restructuring exercise, Keppel Corporation is planning to merge S$26 billion worth of its asset management businesses under wholly-owned subsidiary Keppel Capital to grow the contributions from its investment division.

This will involve Keppel Infrastructure Fund Management (the trustee-manager of Keppel Infrastructure Trust), Keppel DC Reit Management (the manager of Keppel DC Reit), Keppel Reit Management (the manager of Keppel Reit), and fund manager Alpha Investment Partners.

Vallianz: Offshore-related Vallianz Holdings has agreed on Jan 24 to place 550 million new shares at S$0.043 each to two units of China's state-owned supplier of rail transit equipment for S$23.65 million.

The two units are CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute (Hong Kong) Co Limited and CRRC (Hong Kong) Co Limited - both of which are subsidiaries of CRRC Corporation (CRRC), which is listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges. After the placement, CRRC will become a major shareholder of Vallianz, with a 13.9 per cent stake. Vallianz plans to use the net proceeds of S$22.90 million from the proposed placement, which is subject to the completion of due diligence among others, for general working capital needs.

A-Reit: Contributions from new properties, asset enhancement initiatives and positive rental reversion on renewals led Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust (A-Reit) to post a 10 per cent jump in distribution per unit (DPU) for the third quarter ended Dec 31, 2015, to 3.946 Singapore cents from a year ago.

A-Reit made a DPU of 3.59 Singapore cents in the corresponding quarter to December in 2014.

Gross revenue rose 13 per cent to S$193.8 million from S$171.7 million, while net property income jumped 24 per cent to S$142.2 million, from S$114.6 million.