Keppel DC Reit

Keppel DC Reit yesterday posted a third-quarter distribution per unit (DPU) of 1.93 cents, up 4.3 per cent from 1.85 cents in the same period a year earlier.

The higher distributable income was due mainly to higher contributions from the Singapore properties, lower tax expenses and higher net realised gains on derivatives relating to the settlement of foreign currency forward contracts hedged.

Net property income in the three months to Sept 30 fell 1.8 per cent to $42.3 million from the same period a year earlier.

Gross revenue fell 2.5 per cent to $46.4 million due to the absence of rental top-up income recognised. Gross rental income rose 3.7 per cent but was partially offset by lower overseas contributions due to the depreciation of the Australian dollar, euro, British pound and Malaysian ringgit against the Singapore dollar.

Portfolio occupancy as at Sept 30 was 93.6 per cent. The Reit's portfolio weighted average lease expiry was 7.7 years.

Net asset value per unit was $1.09 as at Sept 30, up from $1.07 as at Dec 31 last year.

Aggregate leverage stood at 28.9 per cent as at Sept 30, down from 30.8 per cent as at Dec 31 last year.

Apple Inc

Apple came under fire on Monday for sending Web browsing data, including IP addresses, to China's Tencent Holdings, Bloomberg reported.

For about two years, Apple has been sending data to Tencent as part of an iPhone and iPad security feature that warns users if a website is malicious or unsafe before they load it.

The US company checks addresses against an existing list of sites known to be problematic. That list is maintained by Tencent for users in mainland China and by Google for other regions, including in the United States.

In newer versions of Apple's iOS operating systems, the company says this feature "may also log your IP address", potentially providing Tencent - a Chinese Internet conglomerate with government ties - with data such as a user's location. The safe browsing feature with Google was first added to iOS in 2008, but it was expanded to include Tencent with iOS 11 in 2017. Apple updated its description of the feature in more recent versions of iOS.

"We deserve to be informed about this kind of change and to make choices about it," Professor Matthew Green, a cryptographer at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in a blog post. "Users should learn about these changes before Apple pushes the feature into production, and thus asks millions of its customers to trust it," he said.