In June, news broke out about NTUC Enterprise was close to selling S$4.15 billion worth of suburban malls properties.
Mercatus is the property division of NTUC Enterprise and its portfolio includes:
Jurong Point (S$2 billion value)
NEX (S$1.96 billion value, 50% stake)
AMK Hub (S$846 million value)
Swing By @ Thomson Plaza (S$203 million value)
One Marina Boulevard (NTUC HQ)
34 strata units across Singapore
1 Bligh (Australia)
Mercatus generated S$270.5m revenue in 2021 which is comparable to the S$341m revenue generated by another suburban-mall company, Frasers Centrepoint Trust (FCT). But this revenue was only achieved after FCT acquired the AsiaRetail Fund. Else, Frasers Centrepoint Trust only did below S$200m revenue each year, lower than Mercatus.
Mind you that this is just the real estate arm of NTUC Enterprise.
NTUC Enterprise has a cradle-to-grave business coverage. It starts as young as infant care and childcare centres – my first skool. Then to daily necessities such as groceries (FairPrice), food (Kopitiam and Foodfare) and health care (Unity, NTUC Health – GP and Dental). It includes financial services (Income and MoneyOwl) and adult learning (NTUC Learning Hub). Lastly, it takes care of the aged (NTUC Health – Nursing Home and Senior Day Care).
NTUC Enterprise generated $9.34 billion revenue and $311 million net profits in 2021.
In terms of revenue, it is higher than 18 out of 30 STI components:
Keppel Corp: $8.63 billion
Sembcorp Ind: $7.8 billion
ST Engineering: $7.69 billion
SIA: $7.6 billion
Yangzijiang: $3.5 billion
Venture: $3.107 billion
CapitaLandInvest: $2.73 billion
City Dev: $2.63 billion
Ascendas REIT: $1.23 billion
Capitaland Integrated Com Trust: $1.23 billion
Genting Singapore: $1.1 billion
SGX: $1.056 billion
Mapletree Log Trust: $0.679 billion
Mapletree Ind Trust: $0.610 billion
SATS: $0.607 billion
Mapletree Com Trust: $0.499 billion
Fraser L&C Trust: $0.469 billion
Keppel DC REIT: $0.271 billion
NTUC Enterprise is likely a STI component if it was listed. But of course it should not because the mandate isn’t about making profits for shareholders but to compete against the private sector by moderating prices.
This is a better way than introducing price ceilings as no one is good at determining what is a fair price. Let the market discover that and have NTUC operate in the market in order to figure it out.
But not all businesses make sense. For example, I don’t agree with Fairprice Finest. The richer ones don’t need moderated prices. NTUC looks out of mandate in that space.
