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.
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. The Edge Singapore
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. The Straits Times
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.
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.
