The company said net profit for the year to March was S$795mil, compared with S$2.23bil a year ago, — The Straits Times
SINGAPORE: Singtel on May 23 posted a 64% drop in full-year net profit hit by a previously-announced S$3.1bil impairment charge, most of which came from its Australian subsidiary Optus.
The company said net profit for the year to March was S$795mil, compared with S$2.23bil a year ago, as a result of an exceptional loss of S$1.47bil.
This was the result of a non-cash charge comprising a S$2bil provision on the goodwill of Optus, and S$470mil for Optus’ enterprise fixed access network assets.
It pushed Singtel into the red with a net loss of S$1.3bil, compared with a net profit of S$1.1bil in the same period a year earlier.
Optus announced on May 22 that Australia’s media regulator was taking legal action against it over a 2022 cyber attack that affected more than 10 million customers.
It also suffered a massive network-wide outage in November 2023.
However, excluding the impairment charges, underlying full-year net profit rose 10% to S$2.26bil, reflecting increased regional associate contributions and higher interest income, Singtel said.
Also on May 23, Singtel announced that it had added a new “value realisation dividend” (VRD) of three Singapore cents to six cents per share per annum, on top of the core dividend, to increase shareholder returns over the medium term.
The directors have thus proposed a final dividend of 9.8% per share – consisting of a core dividend of six cents and a VRD of 3.8%.
This compares with the 5.3% dividend for the year-ago period. It brings total dividend payout to 15% for fiscal 2024, a 52% increase year-on-year.
Singtel said this was its third increase in dividends since its strategic reset three years ago.
It added that the VRD will lift the telco’s dividend yield to 6.3% at last close price, up from about 4% previously.
The VRD comes from excess capital from the group’s capital-recycling programme and includes a further S$6bil in assets that Singtel has identified that it could potentially monetise over the medium term, in addition to the S$8bil it has already recycled in the last three years.
It is understood that this capital would go towards funding growth opportunities, paring debt, as well as enabling the group to return excess capital to shareholders through the value-realisation dividend.
Commenting on Singtel’s performance, group chief executive Yuen Kuan Moon said, “Despite a challenging macro environment and significant currency headwinds, our underlying performance was resilient.” — The Straits Times/ANN
