Healthcare on the SGX is focussed on 30 companies with US$25 billion in value most of which have an Asia Pacific focus, said Geoff Howie, director – equities & fixed income, Singapore Exchange, speaking at this year’s HealthInvestor Asia Summit at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
Howie emphasised the continued differentials in growth in Asia Pacific, versus the rest of the world. The healthcare industry across the world is likely to grow 4% this year while in Asia Pacific, it is likely to grow 11.1%. That means that the region is likely to take 28% of the US$2 trillion healthcare industry, he pointed out.
Primary listings are up threefold, while secondary listings are 13 times higher in Singapore. Over past five years, from 2012 to 2017, there have been 13 new listings on SGX. They raised US$190 million as well as nine bond listings of US$550 million.
Healthcare has benefitted from being seen as a safe haven. “We have seen some rotation into defensive sectors in first five months of 2018,” Howie explained. What has also helped is the way that the sector is expanding. “Our highly capitalised stocks are going for growth,” he said, mentioning recent expansions at IHH Healthcare, Top Glove, Raffles Medical, TalkMed Group and HMI.
It can be seen in a concrete way in the differing performances of the MSCI Asia Pacific Healthcare index versus the MSCI World Healthcare index. The former is up 21% over the past 12 months versus 4% for the latter.
