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Singapore stocks end up 0.28 pct

Xinhua, June 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Singapore shares closed 0.28 percent higher on Thursday, but many investors were sidelined ahead of the British referendum on European Union membership later in the day.

While two opinion polls published late on Wednesday showed the "Remain" camp nudging ahead in the closely divided campaign, many investors preferred to stay risk-averse amid increased market volatility in the run up to the referendum.

Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index rose 7.72 points to 2,793.85 points. Trading volume was merely 753 million shares worth 691 million Singapore dollars. Advancers outnumbered decliners 192 to 167, while 545 stocks did not move.

Among top actives, HTL International jumped 16.8 percent to 94 Singapore cents. The leather furniture distributor said it has received an offer from Ideal Homes International to acquire all its issued shares for nearly 400 million Singapore dollars. Ideal Homes plans to acquire all 399.8 million issued shares for 1 Singapore dollar each. This is 20 percent higher than HTL last traded price of 80 Singapore cents on June 17. Ideal Homes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shanghai-listed wood furniture and floor manufacturer Yihua Group.

Magnus Energy sank 50 percent to 0.1 Singapore cents. It announced its wholly-owned subsidiary MEG Management had entered into one engineering, procurement and construction contract as well as an operation and maintenance agreement with Algae Farm Engineering to build and manage a microalgae oil cultivation on facility in Selangor, Malaysia.

MEG Management also separately entered into a patent licensing agreement on Tuesday with Kim Jae Hoon, the founder and director of Algae Farm, for the use of patents on both the cultivation of microalgae and the harvesting machine in this plant.

Among the top gainers, Jardine Cycle and Carriage rose 1.3 percent to 33.54 Singapore dollars, whereas Jardine Matheson became one of the top losers by falling 0.5 percent to 55.97 U.S. dollars. (1 U.S. dollar equals to 1.34 Singapore dollars) Endit