A LEADING landlord has come up with a novel way to help eligible tenants defer rent for up to three years.

New tenants of Far East Organization may be able to sell shares of their companies, worth their base rental amounts, to their landlord each month.

They will have to buy back the shares not more than three years later, at an interest rate of 4 per cent per annum.

NEW YORK - GOLDMAN Sachs Group Inc reported a 33 per cent rise in quarterly earnings on Tuesday on strong trading results, continuing an extraordinary rebound from the near meltdown of the US financial sector last fall.

The results for Wall Street's largest surviving investment bank topped analysts' estimates, bolstered by improving markets and an upswing in advisory fees.

FORMER M1 chief executive Neil Montefiore has been appointed to helm rival telco Starhub.

Starhub said on Tuesday its current CEO Terry Clontz, 58, will retire from his leaderhip position after over a decade with the company.

Mr Clontz, who joined Starhub in Jan 1999 as founding president and CEO, will continue to stay on the board as a director with the group.

EXPECT more grey skies and stuffy conditions as a mixture of scrub fires in Indonesia and El Nino's impending weather shift brings more haze to Singapore.

These conditions will continue over the next few months, predict weather experts.