Stocks to watch: Keppel Corp, SPH, BreadTalk, Keppel Infra Trust, Silkroad Nickel

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

Keppel Corp: Its unit Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Keppel Singmarine, will develop an autonomous tug that will be operated by Keppel Smit Towage. It is expected to be one of Singapore's first autonomous vessels when the project is completed in the fourth quarter of 2020. To develop the autonomous tug, Keppel O&M has secured a grant of up to S$2 million from the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) under its Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund. It is also partnering M1 to leverage the telco's ultra-low latency 4.5G network connectivity to establish standards and data transfer links for the ship-to-shore communication, and support mission-critical Internet of Things maritime applications. Keppel Corp shares closed S$0.07 up at S$6.65 on Tuesday.

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH): The company, which publishes The Business Times, on Tuesday reported a 25.7 per cent year-on-year decline in net profit to S$29.69 million for the second quarter, in line with lower revenue and a fair-value change on investment properties of S$12.86 million. Operating revenue for the three months ended Feb 28 was down 4.4 per cent to S$223.33 million. For the six-month period ended Feb 28, net profit fell 14.7 per cent year-on-year to S$85.61 million due to the lack of investment gains as the treasury & investment portfolio was largely divested by August 2018. SPH shares closed unchanged at S$2.53 on Tuesday.

BreadTalk Group: It will acquire a total of 380 million shares in NPPG (Thailand) Public Company (NPPG), at 1.50 Thai baht per share. The transaction, via a subsidiary, will be completed in two tranches. In the first tranche, BreadTalk will purchase 285 million shares at 1.50 THB per share, equivalent to a 15 per cent stake in NPPG, before end-April. In the second tranche, it will purchase the remaining 95 million shares at 1.50 THB per share, equivalent to approximately 5 per cent of NPPG shareholding, before end-January 2020. BreadTalk shares closed down S$0.005 at S$0.855 on Wednesday.

Keppel Infrastructure Trust: It said on Wednesday that it received 832.3 million applications for its recently launched preferential offering, 1.8 times more than the total number of 455.31 million units available. The offering had closed on April 4, 2019, and each unit was priced at S$0.441 apiece to raise around S$200.8 million. Its units closed unchanged at S$0.465 on Wednesday.

Silkroad Nickel: The Indonesian mining group on Tuesday said it has received environmental approval for the construction of a nickel smelter and supporting facilities at its mine site in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Central Sulawesi's Provincial Environmental Assessment Committee, which granted the approval, has also confirmed that the environmental feasibility requirements of the mining activities and construction of the smelter have been fulfilled, though this is subject to the Central Sulawesi's governor's decree on environmental feasibility and permits. Shares in Silkroad Nickel last traded unchanged at S$0.36 on April 8.