UEM Land raised to 'trading buy'

UEM Land Holdings Bhd rose to an 11-week high in Kuala Lumpur stock trading after Khazanah Nasional Bhd. and Temasek Holdings Pte appointed the Malaysian developer to help oversee S$11 billion (US$8.9 billion) of Singapore property projects.

The stock rose 2.1 per cent to RM2.88 at 11:06 a.m. local time, set for its highest close since April 8. RHB Research Institute Sdn Bhd upgraded UEM Land to “trading buy” from “market perform” with a RM3.35 share estimate, analyst Loong Kok Wen wrote in a report today.

Khazanah and Temasek, Malaysia and Singapore’s sovereign investment companies, will jointly develop hotels, apartments, offices and shops in the city-state, according to a joint statement yesterday. UEM Land, a Kuala Lumpur-based company controlled by Khazanah, will construct parts of the projects along with Temasek units CapitaLand Ltd and Mapletree Investments Pte, they said.

UEM Land is a “blue-chip proxy for improved Malaysia- Singapore relations,” Amir Hamzah, a Kuala Lumpur-based analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, wrote in a report today. “This is one of the catalysts the market was waiting for.” He has an “outperform” rating on UEM Land with a share estimate of RM3.80.

The property ventures come after Malaysia agreed to move its railway station in Singapore’s central business district to a site close to a bridge connecting the two countries, ending a decades-old dispute over land usage. The two nations, united between 1963 and 1965, had argued over issues including a new bridge linking the two nations and the price Singapore pays for water from Malaysia. -- Bloomberg