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Real or not I don't know but we have seen enough of this kind of fight among sibling. I personally think we should not expect anything from our parents even if they have anything left after they have moved on. And that remind us on how we should treat our asset allocation fairly before we move on, like it or not we will have some money, plus our house for our next generation to fight on if we do not allocate them fairly before we say bye bye to the world. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/im-getting-the-short-end-of-the-stick-with-each-new-grandchild-my-parents-want-to-split-their-estate-with-their-grandkids-11631804438

i was appalled when i saw this. This is just morally wrong. And they just wanted the money to pay for funeral expenses. This is like stealing from the dead. CPF, have you no moral sense of decency? Trusts, estates, probate & wills Sisters give up bid for grandma's CPF money Source Straits Times Date 09 Dec 2015 Author Olivia Ho They can't find documents proving their ties; authorities say CPF sum not covered by will They were hoping to use their late grandmother's Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings to pay her funeral expenses. But after waiting for more than a year, property agent Chan Jee May and her two sisters have decided to give up the fight. The sisters lack the documents to prove they are related to Madam Lau Pei Ling, who died last October aged 93. In a forum letter to The Straits Times published on Nov 30, Ms Chan lamented the "many hurdles" they faced in trying to prove their relationship to a woman who had left everything to them in her will. Ms Chan, 36, said: "It's not like anyone is disputing our claim. The rest of our family thinks the money should go to us. I think the claims procedure could be more flexible." A spokesman for the Public Trustee's Office (PTO), which disburses the CPF money of those who did not nominate beneficiaries before their death, said: "Under the CPF Act, CPF monies do not form part of the deceased member's estate and are not covered by a will." The spokesman added that the PTO "will hold onto the monies indefinitely until the beneficiaries come forward to claim (them)". Madam Lau had not nominated anyone to receive her CPF money, which Ms Chan estimated to be between $6,000 and $7,000, before she succumbed to colon cancer. Ms Chan and her sisters, who are civil servants aged 36 and 38, are not the biological grandchildren of Madam Lau, who married their grandfather after the death of his first wife. The couple wed in a last-minute arranged ceremony during World War II and did not have a marriage certificate. The sisters were orphaned as teenagers and were close to Madam Lau growing up. After she had a bad fall five or six years ago, they paid her hospital bill as well as for a helper to take care of her. And, until her death, the sisters would visit her almost every weekend, Ms Chan said. To prove their relationship, the sisters tried to submit to the PTO a 1978 grant of probate in which their grandfather left his Toa Payoh flat to Madam Lau after his death, but this was not accepted as valid. They then considered asking their grandmother's brother, who is in his 90s, to help them claim the CPF money. However, the PTO required his birth certificate, which was also lost in the war. Lawyers The Straits Times spoke to said the Chans could get their grand-uncle to make a statutory declaration about their kinship. WongPartnership lawyer Sim Bock Eng said: "Where there is no clear documentary evidence, in law, it is possible to persuade the CPF Board to accept other forms of evidence, such as a statutory declaration stating the relationship from one or more persons who would have the requisite knowledge of the relationship. "The person will then need to sign the statutory declaration in front of a Commissioner for Oaths as a witness." The PTO spokesman also said the office had advised Ms Chan to get Madam Lau's brother to make a statutory declaration on their relationship, either with a lawyer or at the PTO's premises. The sisters, however, have since decided it is not worth the effort. "If we are going to have to trouble an old man who is not really mobile to help us get the money, we would rather just let it go," said Ms Chan. "The money would probably end up going to the lawyer anyway." Man died before marriage could be annulled When Ms Caroline Edmund read about the Chan sisters' plight in Ms Chan Jee May's forum letter on Nov 30, she could sympathise. The accountant, in her 50s, told The Straits Times that her family has been waiting for four years now to collect nearly $50,000 from her late brother's CPF account. Her brother Ignatius Edmund, a 42-year-old boarding officer, had been trying to get his marriage to a Filipino woman annulled, after not hearing from her for seven years. But before the annulment could be finalised, he was killed in a traffic collision in India. Under Singapore's inheritance laws, Mr Edmund's parents can get only half his CPF money unless his wife comes forward to state that she does not want the money. Ms Edmund said they hired a lawyer to track down the woman, who was found to be living in the United States with another man. All their attempts to contact her have been ignored. Ms Edmund's mother last went to the Public Trustee's Office (PTO) in May to plead their case. She died last month. Ms Edmund's 83-year-old father is now living in India. Ms Edmund said: "If we had the rest of the money, my dad could afford to buy an apartment in Singapore and live here... We've tried to come at it from all angles, but they (the PTO) are so rigid. I'm so tired of this whole thing." Olivia Ho - See more at: http://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/slw/headlinesnews/74348-sisters-give-up-bid-for-grandmas-cpf-money.html#sthash.vHNEml0i.ZHtRwR2W.dpuf

LONDON—Collapsing commodity prices have forced one of the mining world’s most aggressive chief executives into retreat, pushing Glencore PLC’s Ivan Glasenberg on Monday to scrap the company’s dividend, issue more stock and sell assets. The moves are the most dramatic yet among companies caught in the deepening, fast-ricocheting effects of the world-wide slump in prices for everything from copper to crude oil. With a massive trading operation built years ago by founder and controversial financier Marc Rich, Glencore was supposed to be less vulnerable to swings in the energy market. Instead, the company has been hit especially hard. In an interview, Mr. Glasenberg said the moves announced Monday weren’t necessary from his point of view but were made to soothe investor fears of a worst-case scenario in which commodity prices keep falling as demand from China slows further. Investors have fled Glencore this year, driving its share price down nearly 60%. In comparison, rival Rio Tinto PLC has fallen 25%, while BHP Billiton Ltd. is down 12%. After Monday’s announcement, Glencore shares closed up about 7% in London Stock Exchange trading. “If this doesn’t do the trick,” Mr. Glasenberg said about the moves, “we’d have a very difficult environment in the world.” The slide by commodity prices to lows not seen since the depths of the financial crisis has been a big setback for Mr. Glasenberg, a star in the mining world who just a year ago made headlines by proposing a blockbuster merger with Anglo Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. Rio rebuffed the deal, but industry watchers long held out expectations that Mr. Glasenberg, a steely-eyed trader, would eventually win the prize. The likelihood has dimmed because of the damaged stock price and debt concerns. The South Africa native built Glencore from a commodities-trading house into a mining giant. Known as one of the most secretive trading outfits in the world, Glencore went public in 2011, valuing Mr. Glasenberg’s stock at more than $9 billion. In 2012, he launched the $29.5 billion megadeal for mining giant Xstrata, a combination that ended in a power struggle with Xstrata boss Mick Davis, who eventually left the company to launch a private-equity firm. Along the way, Mr. Glasenberg has landed some big names, such as former BP PLC chiefTony Hayward, now Glencore’s chairman, and former Morgan Stanley CEO, John Mack, a Glencore director. Glencore’s rapid ascent dazzled investors, and Mr. Glasenberg was seen by many analysts and rivals as one of the industry’s brightest leaders. Competing chief executives at Anglo American PLC, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton stepped down after major investments launched by those CEOs were struck with billions in write-downs. Mr. Glasenberg rattled their successors with exhortations to cut back on production of iron ore this year, but big producers largely shrugged off Mr. Glasenberg. Now, though, Mr. Glasenberg is facing the toughest test of his career. On Monday, he responded with a series of moves more drastic than those taken by any other resources company, including large oil companies and integrated mining giants, all hammered by the commodity-price downturn. Iron-ore prices have fallen 21% this year, while copper is down 18%. Brent oil, the international benchmark, is down 17% since the start of 2015. In response, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. have cut share buybacks, while Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP and most of the world’s mining giants are slashing spending. U.K. mining company Anglo American said earlier this year it would cut almost a third of its workforce over the next several years to cope. Glencore executives are scrambling to protect the company’s credit rating, a battle that comes down to reducing debt faster than earnings erode. Just last month, Glencore officials promised to trim debt amid disappointing financial results for the first half of 2015. But executives also forecast an upturn in commodities prices later this year, and said they didn’t expect to resort to dividend cuts or issuing new shares, though Glencore said it couldn’t rule out such moves. On Monday, Mr. Glasenberg said big shareholders he met with in recent weeks told him they wanted more to protect Glencore from a worsening slump. Lower commodities prices have battered earnings, making it tougher to hit key targets tracked by analysts, such as debt relative to earnings and cash flow. Credit agencies use those measures to gauge creditworthiness. The two big ratings firms, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, now rank Glencore two notches above non-investment-grade debt. If Glencore falls into “junk” territory, the company’s costs of funding its massive trading operation could spiral, exacerbating the earnings squeeze. Some trading counterparties could also get spooked, pulling out of trades altogether. Last week, S&P cut its outlook on Glencore’s debt rating to negative, citing the company’s hefty debt and the impact of the commodity-price slump. After Monday’s announcement, Ben Davis, an analyst at Liberum Capital, said Glencore is “going into full battle mode, which the market certainly appreciates.” Despite Monday’s stock-price rise, Glencore shares are down about 75% from the company’s initial public offering. Glencore said it would issue new equity to raise $2.5 billion and suspend future dividends to save an additional $2.4 billion. The company promised asset sales of $2 billion and other cuts, including working capital and capital spending, that will add up to $2.5 billion to $3.3 billion. Those moves are aimed at reducing Glencore’s net debt to close to $20 billion by the end of 2016, compared with its previous target of $27 billion. That would improve a measurement of leverage tracked by analysts and ratings firms: net debt divided by earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization, or Ebitda. At its smaller debt level, Glencore still would need to post annual Ebitda of about $7 billion by the end of 2016 to hit its targeted leverage figure, compared with the $9 billion it would have needed with the higher debt level. Glencore said copper and coal prices would have to fall significantly further from their current levels to threaten the target issued Monday. The debt-related worries are centered on Glencore’s trading operation, which had revenue of $35 billion in 2014. Glencore executives have said their trading or “marketing” business, in which traders buy and sell commodities, can rack up profits no matter which direction the market goes. Glencore’s marketing unit has been profitable every year since 1994, when a group of managers, including Mr. Glasenberg, bought the company from Mr. Rich, who later became famous for getting a pardon for a tax-evasion conviction from outgoing PresidentBill Clinton. Mr. Rich died in 2013. Earlier this year, Mr. Glasenberg said trading would make between $2.7 billion and $3.7 billion in annual profit “no matter what commodities are doing.” Last month, however, Glencore reduced its full-year projection for trading profit to between $2.5 billion and $2.6 billion. Glencore has struggled to explain the trading operation and its debt to investors. Most of Glencore’s rivals in trading are closely held, disclosing few financial details or opportunities for comparison. That makes it more difficult to gauge Glencore’s financial flexibility in defending its credit rating. One example is Glencore’s “readily marketable inventories,” or RMI. The company describes them essentially as short-term debt used to trade commodities around the world. Glencore doesn’t count RMI in its net debt calculation, saying in regulatory filings that the obligations are covered “either by a physical sale transaction or a hedge transaction.” Analysts, including those at credit firms, see RMI as a mix of cash and debt. But Glencore says that gives an exaggerated picture of the company’s debt level. As of June 30, Glencore reported net debt of $29.6 billion, but that figure doesn’t include RMI of $17.7 billion. “A large amount of our debt is financing the trading business…so our debt looks like a big figure,” Mr. Glasenberg said in an Aug. 19 meeting with analysts. “But it can be whacked down by playing around on the trading side of the business.” Glencore has already pulled that lever, cutting RMI by $1.5 billion in the first half of 2015. The reduction was aided by the fact that as commodity prices fall, traders don’t need as much cash to hold on to those inventories. By shrinking readily marketable inventories, Glencore can reduce its leverage as measured by credit firms and lower its debt-to-earnings ratios. But that isn’t likely to dramatically improve Glencore’s overall debt exposure. Moody’s classifies half of Glencore’s readily marketable inventories as debt, so a $1 billion decline in RMI is equivalent to just a $500 million reduction in net debt. S&P counts a much smaller portion of Glencore’s readily marketable inventories as debt.

Just wana find out what do u guys think of the amount of reasonable assets an average 35 year old guy would have in Singapore? Can list in format such as follows: Cash - eg $200k Hdb - eg $600k as $800k mkt value but outstanding loan $200k Car - eg $80k mkt value Pte pty - eg $1.3m and so on

BANGKOK (AFP) -

Very digestible for layman like me.... Rest of videos also very good. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/videos/...ic_assets.shtml

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp.../346712/1/.html Citigroup to slash US$400b in assets Posted: 09 May 2008 2310 hrs NEW YORK : Citigroup, the US bank hardest hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, said Friday it plans to slash its assets by some 400 billion dollars over the next two to three years. The banking giant made the disclosure in slides posted on its website that cover the presentation it was making to investors and analysts Friday. Citigroup noted that the vast majority of the assets to be shed are within its consumer banking and securities banking operations, 63 percent and 34 percent, respectively. The assets disposal would represent about 20 percent of the company's total assets of 2.2 trillion dollars. The bank said it wanted to focus on stability and growth, citing its unique global presence and a "large footprint in (the) fastest-growing areas in the world." The financial services colossus said it was targeting net revenue growth of around 10 percent for its core operations within a two- to three-year timeframe. Citigroup broke down this outlook, saying it was targeting net revenue growth of 9.0 percent for its global wealth management business and 7.0 percent for its global credit card business. The bank also targeted revenue growth of 8.0 percent for its consumer banking business, 9.0 percent for its securities and banking business and 14 percent for its transaction services business. "The company hopes that this will allow them to put capital back in its core business, which will then increase the firm's return on equity," Briefing.com analysts wrote in a note to clients. Shares of the company, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, slipped 0.08 percent to 24.28 dollars around 1514 GMT in New York. Citigroup's stock is down roughly 17.5 percent since the start of 2008. On April 18, the company posted a net loss of 5.1 billion dollars for the first quarter and said it would cut an additional 9,000 jobs as it struggles with bad bets on sub-prime, or high-risk, mortgages. It was the second quarterly loss for Citigroup, which took a total 13.9 billion dollars in write-downs for the January-March period. Citigroup is the US bank hardest hit by the sub-prime crisis that erupted in August, wreaking havoc on financial markets and leading to a credit squeeze that is stifling growth in the global economy. Citigroup has been plagued by mounting losses from sub-prime mortgage investments amid the worst US housing slump in decades. The bank has raised billions of dollars to shore up its finances, including almost seven billion dollars from a state-controlled Singapore investment fund. Its top investors include the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Pte Ltd, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and former Citigroup chief executive Sanford Weill. - AFP /ls