Daily Briefing: Noble group swings to $1.67b loss; UOL reports 43% profit drop

And are universities overcharging its students?

Commodities trader Noble Group Ltd. on Thursday swung to a net loss of $1.67 billion for the 2015 fiscal year, its worst annual financial performance since its Singapore listing in 1997, largely due to an impairment charge related to its coal assets. Read more here.

Singapore-listed UOL Group, a major player in the local property market, reported a 43 percent slump in net profit to $391.4 million for the 2015 financial year. In a statement released on Friday (26 Feb), the group blamed the profit fall on lower fair value gains for its investment properties, as well as the absence of a large one-time profit made from the sale of a land site in Malaysia. Find out more here.

The tuition fees of local universities have generally been increasing over the years and there is no sign of the cost stopping anytime soon. The main claimed reasons for the increase in tuition fees are the operating costs and expenses needed in creating the online learning system. Read more here.