Singapore shares ended at a new 4-year high on Friday, aided by gains in some index heavy blue chips such as Singapore Telecommunications on hopes of higher earnings from its overseas ventures. The Straits Times Index closed up 15.47 points, or 0.76 percent, at 2,038.46, its highest since November 2000. In the broader market, losers led gainers 191 to 186 in turnover of 530 million shares. The index ended the week up 1.1 percent.
SingTel rose 2.14 percent to S$2.39, its highest in about a week. It has gained this week after announcing on Wednesday that it would raise its shareholding in Globe Telecom Inc of the Philippines to 45.05 percent from 40.05 percent.
SingTel derives about 75 percent of revenues and two-thirds of pre-tax earnings from operations outside Singapore.
It owns major stakes in Australia's Optus Mobile, Thailand's Advanced Info Service Plc. (AIS), India's Bharti Group, Globe Telecom Inc in the Philippines and Indonesia's PT Telkomsel.
Temasek said last week it had sold about 339 million shares to institutional investors at S$2.36, below SingTel's closing price of S$2.45 on Thursday.
SingTel was among the active stocks of the day with some 25 million shares changing hands.
But the most active stock was debutant Southern Packaging Group Ltd, a maker of packaging products, that started trade at 27 Singapore cents, after an initial public offering of 59 million shares at 30 Singapore cents each.
It later fell as low as 24.5 cents, or about 18 percent, against its IPO price, before ending the day at 25 cents. About 41 million shares of Southern Packaging were traded.
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