BREXIT! The buzzword that is dominating the headlines of newspapers, social media and discussions all over the world.
The immediate reaction from the world is a flight to safer assets and basically a load of panic selling on friday, immediately after the votes were tallied. The world economy experienced was a whooping US$2 trillion wiped off the global stock markets, dwarfing the previous record of 1.9 trillion set in 2008. There is no sign that there will be any calm from the thunderstorm in the near future.
For Singapore, the impact of BREXIT will likely be mixed. The equity and financial markets will bear the brunt - this may present some buying opportunities to those waiting in the wings (like myself). However, beyond the immediate responses from the financial markets, BREXIT's impact on the SG's real economy in contrast is expected to be marginal, at least in the near term.
This unnecessary knee jerk reactions would result in some buy-in opportunities, especially for the stocks that have exposures in UK, let's take a look at some of them:
SEMBCORP INDUSTRIES (SGX: U96)
Wholly-owned subsidiary Sembcorp Industries UK operates a power plant in UK. The impact of a weaker GBP is likely to be immaterial, as GBP exposure is largely hedged through GBP denominated operating cost and banking facilities.
COMFORT DELGRO (SGX: C52)
ComfortDelGro operates metroline, coaches and taxi services in the UK. The portion of the business in UK accounts for 25%, 20% and 18% of Comfort's revenue, operating profit and net profit, respectively.
CITY DEVELOPMENTS (SGX: C09)
City Development has exposure through its hotels and investment in residential/commercial properties. UK exposures are 12% of revenue and 11% of assets.
ASCOTT REIT (SGX: A68U)
Ascott Reit owns several service apartments in UK, which had a 13.6% contribution to its revenue in 2015.
Lets take a look at how they are performing before and after the announcement:
Lets take a look at how they are performing before and after the announcement:
| Counter Name | PRE BREXIT 23-Jun | Opening Price on 27 June | Abs Change | % Change |
| Comfort Delgro | SGD 2.74 | SGD 2.63 | -0.11 | -4% |
| City Developments | SGD 8.69 | SGD 8.15 | -0.54 | -6% |
| Ascott REIT | SGD 1.12 | SGD 1.10 | -0.02 | -2% |
| Sembcorp Industries | SGD 2.86 | SGD 2.72 | -0.14 | -5% |
