SingPost gets SGX approval for listing
Singapore Post (SingPost), a wholly owned unit of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, said yesterday it has received approval from the Singapore Exchange for a mainboard listing.
News indicating the imminent listing of SingPost has been coming in at regular intervals over the last few months.
A terse statement from SingTel said that the SingPost divestment is the result of a strategic review of its assets.
‘The divestment is intended to enable SingTel to focus on its core business as Asia’s leading communications company,’ said the statement. It added that proceeds raised from the disposal of SingPost will be redeployed within the company, including reducing the net debt.
SingTel’s net debt as at its third quarter ended December is $10.06 billion the bulk of which resulted from its 2001 takeover of Australia-based telco Optus.
SingPost spokesman Janine Mathieu declined any further elaboration on the statement.
For the nine months ended December, SingPost had revenues of $264 million, a one per cent fall compared with the corresponding period the previous year. Profits at the SingPost level were not separately reported over this period.
SingPost’s reputation as one of the most profitable postal services in the world seems to be a well-earned one. Its annual report for 2001-02 shows the postal operator clocking $101 million in after-tax profits based on $381 million of operating revenues.
However, within the SingTel group, SingPost accounts only for 4 per cent of group operating revenues.
Although SingPost refused to provide details on the probable size of the listing, Peter Milliken, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Lehman Brothers, had last year valued SingPost at up to $2 billion.
The postal unit, which processed more than 832 million items of mail in 2001-02, has more than 60 branches in Singapore and a headcount of 2,235 as at last March.
It also has the exclusive rights from the telecoms regulator, Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), for ‘snailmail’ services in Singapore till 2007.
Jennifer Toh, spokesman for the IDA, told BT that because SingPost is a public postal licensee, IDA has to give its approval before any change in its ownership can be effected.
