SINGAPORE, Jan 8, 2026, 15:50 (SGT) — Regular session
City Developments’ shares rose 1.7% to S$8.89 in afternoon trade on Thursday, hovering near the day’s high of S$8.95, after a bullish broker call kept focus on asset sales and potential payout upside. 1
The move matters now because property developers are back in play at the start of 2026, with investors hunting for balance-sheet repair and cash returns after a long stretch where higher rates punished the sector’s valuations.
For City Developments, the near-term story is less about a new project launch and more about whether management can turn divestments into cleaner numbers — and, eventually, dividends that show up in cash.
JPMorgan analysts Mervin Song and Terence Khi raised their target price to S$10.75 from S$8.20 in a Jan. 6 note, pointing to a potential “strategic review” and saying the stock still trades at about a 20% discount to book value. They estimated a dividend of 23 Singapore cents a share, above consensus estimates of 17.3 cents, and forecast FY2025 earnings of S$83.9 million and FY2026 earnings of S$200 million. They also expect a narrowing of the discount to RNAV — revalued net asset value, a common property-sector yardstick that marks assets closer to market prices. 2
The stock was already in motion on Wednesday, when it led gainers on Singapore’s Straits Times Index with a 4.2% rise to S$8.74 as the benchmark edged up 0.2% and tracked Wall Street’s gains. “Wall Street closed up at record highs,” Neil Wilson, UK investor strategist at Saxo Markets, was quoted as saying. 3
Technicians will note the stock’s push toward the top of its 52-week range of S$4.32 to S$8.95, a level that has started to act like a magnet this week as volumes picked up. 4
But the broker case leans heavily on two things that can wobble: interest-rate tailwinds and the pace of non-core asset sales. A hotter run of inflation or a stumble in residential sales would leave the stock looking expensive on near-term earnings, and the “strategic review” talk could fade back into the usual sell-side noise.
