Stocks to watch: Great Eastern, Manulife US Reit, Ley Choon, Vallianz

THE quarterly results season continues to toss up trading cues for investors, whose eyes this week are also on how Singapore's biggest banks will fare amid an expected surge in combined provisions due to oil and gas woes.

On Monday, companies that reported results include Great Eastern, Manulife US Reit, Ley Choon and Vallianz.

Great Eastern Holdings reported an 11 per cent drop in net profit to S$195.2 million for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2016, on the back of lower profit from insurance business.

For the full year, its net profit fell 25 per cent to S$589.3 million. This was due to lower non-operating profit, lower profit from shareholders' fund's investments and a loss on disposal of the group's Vietnam business of S$18.7 million, said the unit of OCBC Bank.

Manulife US Reit beat its own forecast by 3.6 per cent by posting a fourth-quarter distribution per unit (DPU) of 1.54 US cents. Its DPU of 3.55 US cents for the period from the date of listing on May 20 to Dec 31, 2016, also exceeded its forecast by 4.8 per cent. This came on the back of higher-than-expected net property income.

Ley Choon Group Holdings has cemented a turnaround from a year ago with a net profit of S$8.76 million for the third quarter ended Dec 31, 2016, and S$14 million for the first nine months. The construction company had incurred net losses of S$2.85 million and S$46.54 million in the year-ago periods respectively. These came on the back of a surge in other income mainly from a gain on disposal of assets.

Vallianz Holdings reported that its net profit for the fourth quarter of 2016 fell 35.4 per cent to US$3.1 million, compared to US$4.7 million a year ago. Revenue from troubled Swiber entities has declined substantially to US$43.4 million, and accounted for 20.8 per cent of Vallianz's total revenue in 2016, as compared to 34.6 per cent in 2015.