Stocks to watch: SingPost, Noble, KTL Global, Pine Capital, Ascendas H-Trust

THE following companies saw new developments that may affect trading of their shares on Friday:

Singapore Post (SingPost) recorded a net profit of S$43 million for its third quarter ended Dec 31 2017, up 37.2 per cent from a year ago. This was driven by improved performance from its postal, eCommerce and property segments, as well as a S$6.9 million one-off adjustment of deferred tax arising from changes in the US corporate tax rate.

Noble Group: Noble Group said on Friday that a proposed divestment of four dry bulk carrier vessels to further pare debt has fallen through as the buyers failed to obtain approval from their boards before Feb 1, 2018, making the deal void. The disposal of the freight vessels for gross proceeds of about US$95 million had been approved by Noble shareholders at a special general meeting on Jan 25. If the proposed sale had been completed, net proceeds after taking into account relevant costs would have amounted to US$30 million.

KTL Global: Oil and natural gas company KTL Global narrowed its net loss to S$2.17 million, or 0.9 cents per share, for the second quarter ended Dec 31, from a net loss of S$2.78 million, or 1.16 cents per share, a year ago. For the three months ended Dec 31, the group's revenue was S$9.3 million, 15 per cent higher than the S$8.1 million in the year-ago period. No dividend has been recommended for the half year ended Dec 31.

Pine Capital Group: Pine, which was formerly called OLS Enterprise, posted a net loss of S$926,000 for the three months ended Dec 31, 2017 compared to a year-ago S$1.5 million loss. With about 3 billion issued shares during the period, that represented a per-share loss of about 0.03 Singapore cent for the quarter.

Ascendas Hospitality Trust (A-HTrust): Dragged by weaker performance in its Australia portfolio, A-HTrust posted a 14 per cent drop in distribution per stapled security (DPS) for the third quarter ended Dec 31, 2017 to 1.41 Singapore cents. Net property income (NPI) fell 4.7 per cent from a year ago to S$25.2 million, amid weaker performance from the Australia portfolio and translation losses in foreign-currency earnings due to the stronger Singapore dollar.