Welcome back everyone. My name is Adam. I have Victor with me.
Hi, everyone.
Today we have a very, very special guest. He is the Group CFO of Singtel. His name is Arthur Lang. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you. Hi, everyone. Nice to be here.
Yeah. I think we want to do this roundtable because Singtel has been darling of the stock market in Singapore. Blue-chip dividend stock. Can I say that?
Okay.
I guess so, yeah.
It's been a long time since someone called Singtel the darling, but we're very happy and very grateful that it's happening now.
I think that was my perspective as a retail investor myself.
Yes. Yeah.
One of the blue-chip dividend stocks. I think that changed a little bit when the industry opened up.
Yes.
We wanted to seek your views about what's happening with Singtel right now. There's a strategic reset. We're going to cover that.
Sure.
And the Singtel28. Before we jump all into that, maybe just a really quick introduction about yourself and what you do at Singtel.
Okay. Sure. Thank you. Really nice to be here. Thank you to the both of you for inviting me. As I mentioned, some of you might have heard me or seen me before. I am the Group CFO of Singtel. My name is Arthur Lang. I just finished three years at Singtel as CFO. I'm into my fourth year now, this is my eighth year at Singtel. When I moved, I started my career as a banker, an investment banker for about 16 years in different countries. Singapore mainly, a bit of Hong Kong, a bit of New York. After that I went to CapitaLand, another very well-known company, to be the Group CFO there for about six and a half years. I came over to Singtel to be the CEO of the International group.
About three and a half years ago when our previous leadership, many of them retired, there was a bit of a change in the management team, I was asked to take on the Group CFO role together with my CEO international role. Right now, I wear two hats. Unfortunately, only one salary. I'm very happy that I have the Group CFO role, I also look after our regional associates.
Okay.
That's my story.
Thank you so much. I think we're honored to have you here.
Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Victor, you've been to Singtel AGMs quite a bit.
Yeah. I used to go to the Singtel AGM, I think since 10 years plus until now.
Okay.
I go very consistently.
Yeah.
Until a certain year, I didn't really go. Then after that, this year, I decided to go back.
Okay
And go and take a look at Singtel. When I was inside, I was shocked. Now that Singtel is different from—
In a good way?
Yeah, in a good way.
I know. I was shocked in a good way.
The Singtel is—
I thought you're shocked in a bad way.
No, no. The Singtel now is very different from the past because I feel that it's much more focused now.
Okay.
Right. You guys focus a lot on capital allocation and returning capital back to shareholder. I think our viewers also want to know what's happening to Singtel now. That would be a good thing to talk about.
Yeah. Okay. Year to date, Singtel has returned over 30% so far. I think it's a tremendous performance in the stock market. I think there's a reason behind that. Some investors may already have picked that up, but for those who are watching this who don't know what's happening with Singtel, I think it's a great opportunity right now to understand what's happening.
Yeah.
I think maybe first with the strategic reset that happened three years ago.
Sure. Yes. Correct.
This new growth initiative
Yes
We have with the Singtel28 thing. I think we want to learn what's happening. Yeah.
Okay. No, thank you. Maybe I'll start off three years back.
Yeah.
This was probably early 2021, or within a few months, there's been a bit of a change at Singtel because many of the leadership team from the prior team retired. They reached retirement age, they retired, and it was a time that we had to change because we were coming out of COVID. The industry faced tremendous amount of challenges. We can talk about competition later in Singapore, but not just Singapore, more importantly, in the places like India.
Yeah
Which really hit us very badly in the beginning.
Yeah.
We had this 5G CapEx wave where all the telcos had to build out a 5G network. The use cases were not that clear, were not that apparent over competition in many of our markets. We really got whacked in many different directions. The new leadership team had to really reorganize ourselves and reset ourselves to really focus on the new challenges and how to face up to those challenges. What we did, as you rightly said, it seems quite easy to understand Singtel now, right?
Yeah.
Compared to the past.
Yeah.
What we did was really to simplify the business.
Okay.
We had many different business units which served its purpose maybe 10 years ago, but now each business unit has grown to a size where it's big enough, it's grown enough, but it was a bit confusing to everyone. We started merging or combining different business units. We had, for example, in Singapore, we had a separate enterprise group, we had a separate consumer group. Both providing mobile data plans, both providing fixed broadband. Why do you have two different groups with two different bosses?
We combine it. We have one boss, one Singapore boss reporting to the Group CEO. One CFO of that reporting to the Group CFO. Same thing we had in Australia. We had two different units. There was just unnecessary layers, additional costs. Worse still, If you are like a thâu-ke in Singapore.
Yeah
Are you a consumer customer to Singtel, or are you an enterprise customer? That created a confusion.
We simplified the business significantly, and we took out a lot of costs. That's the first thing we did. I think the second thing, we had a lot of loss-making businesses. In the past, Look, I'll be very honest with you. We made mistakes.
Yep.
We went into many digital type of businesses. To be fair, it's not just us. Many companies, telcos or non-telcos, went into those businesses, and they realized they should not have gone in. We lost money. What we did was we just cleaned up everything. We impaired some of the businesses. We shut them down, we sold them off. Now I can say almost every single business is not loss-making anymore. All the loss-making businesses have been sold and gotten rid of or shut down. I think the other thing we did was because of the capital intensity of the businesses, Actually, sorry. Before that, we realized that Singtel was not just Singapore and not just telco. Particularly, it's not just telco. I always kid internally that we should be thinking about changing our name.
In addition to our telco business, we had a very large data center business, which is actually the largest in Singapore by capacity, but no one knew that. Another business that was pretty sizable was what I call the IT Services arm, which is the largest in Southeast Asia, called NCS. Again, it was hidden under our telco business.
Yep.
What we did was we separated these two out because these are growth engines. They're not telcos. The growth profile is definitely a few times its magnitude than the growth profile of telcos. Finally, what we did was we because it's so capital intensive, over time, during those difficult years, we had to cut our dividend twice.
That really killed the confidence in our investors. When I looked at the balance sheet of Singtel and the assets we hold, we hold so many assets that were undervalued, whether it's an office building or headquarters, whether it's our shares in our regional associates, whether it's our towers business in Australia. Many things that we could monetize, take that capital, reinvest into growth, like data centers or IT services, or even fund our 5G CapEx build out, pay down the debt, especially in a rising interest rate environment, and excess capital return to shareholders. That's what we did. We came out with this idea, very fancy name, called capital recycling. It's effectively monetizing assets, taking the money and recycle into businesses that we care about and want to grow, and return the capital. We recycled about SGD 8 billion.
That woke the market up.
Yeah.
The market realized that, "Hey, these guys at Singtel, not only do you have operational cash flows to pay out dividend, you could also rely on asset monetization or asset recycling to return the capital." I think that during the last three years of our strategic reset, we did all that. We proved to the market, okay, which I think maybe I should stop soon because I talked too long already. People were asking, "Hey, how come your stock price is not doing well?
Okay.
Everything that the management did was the right thing. Okay, maybe I'll stop here.
I think that's fantastic.
Yes.
I think this strategic reset has been a success.
Yes.
Would you say so?
Okay. I'll let the markets and the investors decide.
Okay. Yeah, right.
We are happy.
I think-
We are happy. Yes.
What you shared was very enlightening.
Thank you.
The management just streamlining the business.
Yes.
What worked, what didn't work.
Correct.
If it didn't work, just sell it or just shut it down.
Correct.
I think not a lot of management do this.
Correct
So well, so successfully in this amount of time, because Singtel is a big company.
Yeah. It's a big company.
A lot of moving parts.
Yes.
From what you shared, I think you guys did a really good job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
I mean, we have been in the telecom market for a long time. This is one of the first few times that I saw—
Yeah
Listed company really try to divest a lot of the non-core asset and come return capital back.
That's good to know. Yeah.
I think the thing about Singtel is, like I said just now, a lot of people don't know. I mean, I'm also always in the market.
Yes.
You guys did the strategy reset.
Correct. There's so many things to look at.
To be honest, yeah, I also had a look at it. Singtel was like, okay, telco, competitive. Okay, just put it aside.
Yeah.
If I feel something ticks in and I feel like interested, I will go back and look.
Correct.
The 2024 AGM just shocked me.
Okay.
I said, "Okay".
That's good to know. That's good to know.
Very good strategic reset.
Yes.
There's this new growth initiative.
Yes.
Singtel28.
Correct. Yeah.
Could you tell us more about that one?
Okay.
Yeah.
All the three years of the strategic reset, I talked about the things that we did. One consistent theme we're getting from investors is, "Hey, Arthur Lang, Mr. CFO, Mr. CEO, Yuen Kuan Moon, I like what management team is doing. All the things you're doing, you said you were going to do, and you have done them. But, y our stock price is not performing." They're saying, we really spent a lot of time thinking, how do we do all the things we did and we promised we would do, yet at the same time allow investors to benefit and realize the value? I realized that we need to return capital.
Yep.
We decided, we need to be bold enough, also wise enough to know that can we really return the capital on a consistent basis, not just one-off type of special dividend? We spent a lot of time thinking about a strategy for the next few years, we realized that we can. That's why we came out with the ST28 strategy. The ST28 strategy is simply looking at your core business, your underlying business, and seeing whether it can improve. If it can improve based on our core dividend policy, which is 70%-90% of our underlying profits, if underlying profit grow for the same dividend payout, the dividend will also grow.
Yeah.
We looked at it and said, "You know what? I think we can." That's why we guided to the market that our EBIT, which is our four main OpCos, is Singtel Singapore, Optus in Australia, NCS, and our Nxera, our data center business. The four OpCo EBIT can grow at high single digit or low double-digit percentage. We guided the market.
Okay.
The reason why we were able to guide it, because all the bitter medicine was taken in the first three years.
We shut down the businesses, we cut costs, we took the two growth engines and positioned them well. If you look at our associates, our international associates, which we should talk more about, the worst seems to be over from a regulatory standpoint. There were many. The over- competition seemed to really hit our overseas markets in the first three years. Now things seem to have stabilized. In India, I remember when I first joined Singtel, there were 12 or 13 players.
Wow, okay.
Now we are down to three.
Okay.
In Thailand, now we are down to two players, right? There is a story about industry consolidation and market repair. All this basically contributed to the fact that we could grow our underlying profits, which means our core dividend can grow. On top of that is what we call a Value Realization Dividend, right? We said, okay, all these latent assets that we talked about, right? Whether it is office building, our shares in our listed associates, we could monetize some of it, right? If we monetize, and we got a lot of assets we can potentially monetize. We monetize, we kind of assure investors that we return that capital. We said every year, SGD 0.03-SGD 0.06 dividend.
Okay.
That is about SGD 500 million-SGD 1 billion every year. One every year, we said it cannot be one-off.
One-off, investors say, "Wow, good." First year we payout, price cannot go up, and next year, it comes down, right?
Yeah. For how many years would this go on?
Okay. We said in the medium-term.
Okay.
We said in the medium-term. Of course, we cannot specifically say, medium-term to me is up to five years.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Yes.
Yep. I understand that next, I think, three years you are going to divest about SGD 6 billion assets recycled.
Yes. Correct.
How much of this SGD 6 billion asset is going to the VRD?
Oh, okay. This one we need to keep the market guessing. You know what? The reality is that SGD 6 billion, right, some of it has to go into growing our new businesses. An example would be what we did last year with the KKR investment.
Yep.
Right? KKR basically has signed up to put in SGD 1.1 billion.
For 20% of our data center business. That SGD 1.1 billion is to fund growth.
It's not to return capital.
Okay.
You know what I mean? In some ways it's also good because you fund growth, then that new data center will generate more EBITDA in income, which would then can be returned through our core dividends.
Okay.
Indirectly, it's returning money, capital t o investors.
Yep
It's really to focus on the growth. Part of that SGD 6 billion will be used to fund this type of growth here.
Okay.
I would say a good portion of it will be used to fund that VRD.
Okay. You're going to pay down the debt also for using this SGD 6 billion?
Yes. Again, it is part of the capital management. If you look at, we paid down quite a bit of debt during the first three years when interest rates were coming up, right? You'll see that in a rising interest rate environment.
Yep
I think we were one of the few companies that had interest expense coming down.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think maybe part of the reason maybe why the performance of Singtel this year has been pretty good is that this dividend policy has been upfront and center.
Correct.
Investors are aware of it.
Yes. Correct.
Like you said, even though there's growth among your four core businesses.
Yes. Plus our associates.
Plus your associates.
Yes.
You have this VRD where you return capital as well.
Correct.
All of this is going to just, I guess, garner interest among—
Yeah. Garner interest
Investors. Yeah.
Correct. Because the underlying pit, the core, if investors are confident that it can grow with all the efforts from strategic reset, plus the VRD where we have assured investors SGD 0.03-SGD 0.06 per year. Right? They need to be convinced that we can do this, they look at all our assets, I think they are convinced that we can do this combined, you will see it actually then represents a very interesting and attractive dividend yield, especially with interest rates coming down.
Yeah.
Right? I think from that perspective or at least the feedback we got from investors, both the retail and the institutional were very positive, we want to maintain that.
All right.
Continue doing that.
Yep.
Yeah.
How about I hear from your overseas associates, they are consolidating. How about the Singapore market?
Singapore market, very tough. Okay, if you see, Singapore, right now there are four main players.
Yep.
We call them MNOs, mobile network operators. You've got at least 12 MVNOs.
Yeah.
Where they basically it's a brand, they rely on the network of any of the four.
Yep.
I can tell you competition has been very, very tough, right? The market in Singapore, it's a good market, it's a low growth market.
Yep.
Not no growth, but low growth. Sometimes unfortunately is if we grow, it is because we take share from the competitor. If the competitor grows, it's because they take share from us.
Yep.
Right? It's not like in India or Thailand or Indonesia where owning a mobile phone or a data plan for the very first time. There are people who still do have that. N ew growth. That is amazing, right? That is something that we really find amazing, especially in our regional markets. While Singapore is tough, I guess the relatively good news is that 75%+ of our profits actually come from outside Singapore.
We are quite diversified. Of course, Singapore is a very important market to us. It is critical, right? We need to continue to maintain our strong position, we want to be profitable and generate good returns. We need to be smart about how we operate. We need to continue to keep costs very lean despite the fact that we are number one player. We need to be smart about CapEx. You know what? We need to really think about new revenue growth. We need to think about how we can rely on 5G, and think of new ways. In Singapore, we are one of the very few countries globally to have what we call a standalone 5G network.
Yeah.
Which means you can take the 5G network and split it up according to different needs. Some people like fast speed, you can create this part of 5G and say, "Okay, I give fast speed to this particular customer." Some like high reliability. Speed may not be that important. I can craft that on the same 5G network without causing a lot of interruption between the two needs. A classic example I can give is, I think we all know we had Taylor Swift in Singapore early this year, we tested. We said, okay, we also tested this for the National Day Parade. They say if you want fast speed, you know, w e all see Taylor Swift performing.
Yeah.
Sing my favorite song, I record it, I straight away want to upload it on Instagram and look like a hero, right?
Yeah.
You want to beat everyone else to load it. If you buy a specific plan with Singtel, during those few hours, you have kind of fast lane 5G traffic that you can upload. You just pay a few dollars, you can do that, and then you can upload it faster than everyone else 54,999 people in the National Stadium, and you look like a hero.
Yeah.
That's how the wonderful things we can do with 5G. These are the new revenue opportunities that we're looking at.
I didn't know about that.
Yeah.
We need to sign up also.
Yeah, okay. I will sign you up. Yeah.
Okay, yes. Yeah. I think a lot of people Singtel has now grown beyond Singapore.
Yes.
I still remember when it was one of the first new stocks.
Yep
When the government gave out Singtel shares to everyone.
Yes. Correct.
I think my parents may have some shares.
Correct.
I have no idea whether they still have them.
Yeah.
It's one of the things that, I guess, one of the catalysts that motivated Singaporeans to go start investing.
Yes.
Singtel has grown beyond Singapore. You mentioned you have businesses in Australia.
Correct
India.
Yes.
You have Philippines, Thailand as well.
Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia. Yeah.
Indonesia.
Yes.
I believe that in all these markets, you're either number one or number two.
Correct
In these markets, right?
Yes.
Where do you see the next phase of growth for Singtel? I know you mentioned data centers as well.
Yes.
Beyond these areas.
Correct
I mean, beyond Singapore, you have all these countries as well. Where do you see the next key source of growth will be?
Okay.
Yeah.
I think there are, I would say maybe four areas of growth.
Okay.
One is linked to our current business, which is Actually, two are linked to our current business. One is on the mobile side, is what I talked about, 5G.
Ways of doing or using 5G to differentiate ourselves. If you just use 5G to watch video, I can tell you it doesn't really differentiate versus a 4G. If you use 5G to do what I talked about with Taylor Swift and all that, or you do 5G for autonomous vehicle manufacturing for companies, we actually have that here in Singapore, that is a differentiator. That's the first thing we do. Second thing is more for our emerging markets in Asia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and India, fixed broadband, that means Wi-Fi. Fixed broadband in Singapore, I think every home has Wi-Fi.
Almost every home, 99% +. In places like Indonesia, the household penetration is still less than 20%.
Wow.
That means the growth is tremendous. Interestingly, our associates today, we have really in the last three years focused on fixed broadband. Today, Indonesia, Thailand is the largest fixed broadband player. We own that. With the penetration still so low, tremendous growth opportunity. India and Philippines, I think we're number two, still got good growth opportunity there. Those two are the ones that are linked to our business. The next two are, as we talked about, data centers.
Okay.
Data center is actually, we are very optimistic about that because one of our very strong enterprise relationship and government relationships, everybody is talking about data centers for storage, compute, and now AI, which requires a lot of data center capacity and needs. With the investment from KKR, we have a lot of capital that we can really grow and grow fast in countries that we care about. Finally, our IT services arm, which is NCS. That's important because now a lot of companies, even medium sized companies and governments are trying to digitalize. Meaning everything is on digital.
Yeah.
We're really going digital. This is not just having an app. This is really having, like if your customer data and all that is digitalized in the cloud, how you actually upload it and put all the data and your analysis and insights into the cloud and compute it. It involves like at the airports, you see that people now you can use your retina scan or just scanning your passports. No more individuals stamping your passports. It involves security personnel walking along with cameras, having AI to detect, or facial recognition to detect potential threats and all that kind of thing. All this is part of what NCS can do. A tremendous amount of opportunity, not just in Singapore, but around the region.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It sounds like Singtel is no longer like a telco company.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's a digital company.
Correct. If you put it that way, right?
Yes, absolutely. That's why I always think maybe we should change our name. We're not just Singapore.
Yeah.
Only 25% of our profits come from Singapore. We're not just telco because of all the new businesses. Having said all that, we also fundamentally, jokes aside.
Yeah
The majority of our cash flows today still come from the telco business.
Okay.
Like mobile and broadband.
Yep.
We also need to accept reality, particularly for the mature markets like Singapore. It's a tough business because of over-competition. At the same time, I think you just have to
You have to fight the war that you are given.
Yeah.
Right? You have to fight the competition.
Yeah. I think the point to make is really helping our investors and stakeholders understand we're more than just Singapore, we're more than just telco.
Yeah. Just curious.
Yes
I think you guys do the strategic resets as a group.
Yes.
I believe because you own the associates, I believe some of your board member definitely sit on the associates.
Correct
Board or something, right?
Yes. Yeah.
Do you also encourage the associates to do strategic reset?
Oh, yes, we do. If you look to your point is, we actually do have senior management of Singtel sitting on the boards as board reps in many of our, actually all, not many, in all of our regional associates. More importantly as well, we have a lot of Singtel's people who are seconded there to take on senior management roles, whether it is the deputy CEO role or the CMO, Chief Marketing Officer or the Chief Technology Officer. What we are doing is we are encouraging all our associates to also think about kind of resetting the business to reduce costs, to fight the new kind of battle.
The new market where telcos today have a great advantage. What they do not have, if they stick to their old ways of doing business, it's a tremendous competition. You've got threats from the digital players, the OTTs. At the same time, many of them have very strong customer relationships. They have very strong cash flows, they have data centers, they have a lot of assets, they have towers business that they can monetize. To answer your question, if you look at every single one of our telcos, they have embarked on their own version of the strategic reset.
Oh.
Yeah.
Good.
Yes.
All right. These are the good things that I hear about Singtel.
Yes, correct.
I think it's also important to know what are some of the risks that could come with all these g rowth initiatives. For example, data centers is a growth area, but it's very capital intensive.
Yes. I agree. Yes.
If that doesn't work out, there's a lot of sunk cost in there.
Yes. Correct.
That's one thing I could maybe highlight.
Yes.
Is there anything that near term, maybe midterm risks that could derail your growth plans?
No, I think you are absolutely right that the data center business is very capital intensive.
We need to always make sure that beyond any doubt, that investors will believe that we will be able to fund our growth.
Right? You don't fund the growth from debt, because if it's just debt, one day we're going to cut dividends, because how are you going to do that? It's not sustainable.
Is that what happened previously?
You see, in the past, I would say in many ways, because the 5G CapEx was just very high. Number two, more importantly, the company only relied on one source of capital, which is operating cash flows.
Okay.
Right? When all the challenges came, the operating cash flows came down. The only way is to do is to cut dividend or really increase debt, right? The debt increased a little, but not too much, we had to cut dividend.
What we are doing now is we're saying, okay, we still are funding all this growth. It's coming from operational cash flows, which have improved for all the reasons I've given. At the same time, there's this second pot. What we call internally pot two.
Pot two is from all our asset recycling. We can rely on two pots. Actually interestingly, that second pot is not just from the sale of assets. It is what I call the second part of this pot is through what I call capital partners. Capital partnerships.
This is where KKR comes in. Where we have this growth profile that we want to invest in, we don't need to just sell assets to fund this growth, but we can bring in capital partners like KKR, whom I think we all know have massive amounts of capital.
Yeah.
Right? They do believe in Asia's data center growth. We are partnered with them, and then we are relying on their capital and then growing. Today, every single data center or spend that we have from our data center business, KKR is funding every single dollar up to SGD 1.1 billion.
Okay.
Right? That's how we think about capital management, right? Funding using capital partnerships as well.
Okay.
Yes.
Another interesting thing is you go and look at your Comcentre, it's sealed up right now.
Yes.
What's happening?
What's happening? Very soon, you'll start seeing it get shorter and shorter because they are demolishing it. I was hoping, right?
Yeah.
You can do those implosion, right?
Oh.
You just see it coming down.
That would be a spectacle.
Unfortunately, in Singapore, yeah, I know, I would definitely go and watch and hopefully can get a drone up there and film the whole thing. Unfortunately, I think because of some rules.
Yeah.
Actually, I'm not even sure whether Singapore we can do it because we're a very dense place, so we can't do that. They're doing demolition floor by floor. Then so you see it come down, and then we're rebuilding it. The reason why we're doing that, and it's not just a refurbishment, is because it's an old building.
Yep.
It's a very old building, and as a result, it's very inefficient. Each floor plate is not efficient and as a result of that, it's not as green.
Yep.
In this new building that we are building, it will be, if I'm not wrong, one of the greenest office buildings in Singapore. We're quite excited about it. Yeah.
Yeah.
Are you going to rent it out or are you just going to?
Yes, I think we're going to occupy maybe a third of that building.
Okay.
The rest of the two thirds we are leasing them out.
Okay.
If you all want to come in, please move in, we can be in the same building.
Give us a special rate.
Always can discuss. We'll see.
Okay.
When will the redevelopment be done?
Okay, I think it is 2028.
2028.
I think that is the plan right now.
How much are you spending on this capital expenditure for this building?
Okay. This development, we actually started owning 100% of the building. We brought in a—w ell, first of all, we don't know how to build a nice office building— we brought in a partner, Lendlease, after a very intense kind of beauty parade, right?
Looking at all the top developers in the region. We picked Lendlease and us our partner. We sold 49% stake to them. They take 49% stake in the project, we have 51%, and we'll co kind of build it together and develop it. Then we'll rely on Lendlease' ability to rent out.
Okay. Yeah
Because they have built some nice properties here, like I think 313@somerset, the PLQ, Paya Lebar Quarters, and all that. Yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
Singtel is doing a lot. It's like reinvesting capital in the Comcentre data centers.
Yes
All your growth initiatives. Could you say what is the difference between, in the past, the management putting all this capital into their acquisitions in the past? What's the difference between that and now? How you feel this one is going to be a success? You know?
Oh, okay.
Is this going to work out?
Yes.
It didn't work out so well the last time.
Yeah, I know. I think we need to. Hard to really, looking back is always.
In hindsight.
full hindsight, right?
Yeah.
20/20. looking forward.
Yeah
I think we talked a lot about the risks and what we're concerned about. I think the key risk is also about, we need to invest correctly. We need to invest wisely.
Yeah.
To make sure that we'll be able to generate the required return. Every single acquisition we make, every single investment, I think we need to really think about it and really scrutinize it and be very clear that this is something that is, number one, aligned to our overall strategy, and whether it can get us to the destination we want to get to in a few years' time. Number two, that we need to consistently stay focused on the business plan. Making sure we deliver.
I guess you're diversifying your exposure in a sense because you have KKR helping you with the data centers.
Correct.
Lendlease is coming in.
Precisely.
With Comcentre .
From property.
It's not like you're eating the whole pie.
Yes. Correct. Exactly.
Which is even more—
Yes. In some ways, I think what we also can do is partner. You see, if you look at our telco businesses, o ur overseas joint ventures. O ne of the reasons why I would argue we're very successful there, it is because we found the right partners. Many of this, when we bought the telco, it wasn't an existing number one telco.
Yep.
It was literally from scratch, bid for the license together, and build it up to where it is today. It's really because we found the right partner with the right value system, with the right mindset, and very aligned. You learn how to work with them, right? Today, I would say we are actually probably the only Singapore company that has such strong partnerships outside Singapore. Right? Strong businesses. Who can say that they are number one, number two in very large markets like India and Indonesia?
Right. Any bank cannot say that, any utility company. Very few companies can say that. Actually, we are very appreciative of the foresight that many of our leaders before us went abroad. We want to continue that. Now it's no longer about going to telcos because actually, to be frank, no more telcos to.
Yeah.
No more greenfield telcos to go for already. We need to think of the new one, which is digital.
Right. Which is data centers, IT services, our digital bank, finding all the different partnerships and really growing them together. That's the key. Yeah.
Yep.
Yes.
Maybe you also can talk more about your partnership with GXS.
Grab
Grab, right? The GXS, right?
Yes.
How is it progressing?
Okay.
Is it profitable? Or when is it going to be profitable or something? Okay.
It is not profitable yet.
Yeah.
We are targeting for 2026 to break even.
Yeah.
Actually, if you look at our digital bank, it's Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Indonesia and Malaysia started off very well. Actually, we've got over a million customers for each country already. Actually, we just launched within a year.
Yep.
Right? It's progressing very well. In fact, the markets there are so big and it's just, especially in Malaysia, we are, I would say at this point in time, we are way ahead than a lot of the digital bank competitors.
We cannot rest on our laurels. We just have to keep going. Singapore is a bit more difficult. Probably the reason is that we've got very fierce competition here. That has really made us relook at our Singapore business and really see what we can do better. Together with Grab and the management team of GXS, we're looking at how we can position ourselves better and be able to address the competition. Fundamentally, the most important thing is how we serve our customers, our bank customers, and really taking care of the underserved, which is the core purpose of this bank.
Yep.
Right? How we do it is really leveraging on our customer base. Grab customer base and Singtel. I think combined, we will probably cover every adult Singaporean or every teenage Singaporean and above.
Right?
Yeah.
Whether either a Singtel customer or Grab customer or both.
Yeah.
I guess this is another example of just working with the right partner.
Precisely
In a new growth area.
Exactly. Correct. When Singtel was going through the thought process about whether we should go for the digital bank, we spent a very intense few weeks doing speed dating. Grab was the same thing.
Right? We were finding all the potential partners. There were a lot of partners, surprisingly, who actually approached us as well.
Some very strong digital competitors, both local and abroad. Finally, it was interesting that both Grab and us kind of figured out that the right party to partner was the other party.
It was in some ways, quite a match made in heaven. Right? It was good. It's a tough business.
It is difficult because competition is intense. We are in this now, and we need to fight the competition.
Do you foresee this particular industry, this digital bank industry?
Yes
Consolidating like some years down the road? Like what happened with telcos?
Good question. I think it's too early to say.
Okay.
At the end of the day, many of them have just started.
Right? telcos have been around for quite a while already.
Yeah.
Still early to say now.
Okay.
Correct.
A partnership like this with Grab, for example.
Yes
Who drives that business forward? Is it a 50/50 decision split?
Okay. It's 60/40.
Yeah.
They own 60%, we own 40%, we have board representation.
Because it's a bank that is regulated by the MAS, it has to be a standalone bank with a standalone management and board. We need to think of what is right for the bank. Of course, as shareholders, we also sometimes would also make sure that the bank and the shareholders were aligned. Fundamentally, first and foremost, we need to think what's best for the bank. Then after that, how it aligns with the true shareholders. That's how we look at it.
Okay.
How we manage it. Yes.
Okay. Yeah. Correct when it comes to AGM, you get a lot of shareholders asking.
Yeah
Are you gonna increase the dividend? Are you?
Wow, okay. That's a tough one. Okay, we did say EBIT will grow by high single digits to low double digits.
Yeah.
Assuming what we said can actually happen, t hat would mean your underlying net profit, right, also hopefully can grow if the associates continue to perform a certain way. If underlying profit grows, if we keep our payout the same, it will naturally grow. Then, y ou look at the VRD. VRD is SGD 0.03 to SGD 0.06. You think of it as add on. Right? So, t he SGD 0.15 we paid out or announced last year, I think about SGD 0.039 was the VRD, right? Yeah, I think it was SGD 0.039.
SGD 0.038.
SGD 0.038. Yeah.
Yeah.
The remaining SGD 0.122, no, about SGD 0.11—
SGD 0.112.
SGD 0.112. Okay, sorry, my maths today cannot. Okay, SGD 0.112 was for underlying profit. If the thinking is underlying profit can grow, that SGD 0.112 will become another number, higher number. If we stick to SGD 0.038, SGD 0.039 VRD, will continue to grow. I think the key is investors need to ask, number one, is the core business able to grow? If the core business is able to grow, underlying profits will grow. That will help our dividend.
Number two, is Singtel's capital recycling model something that they are convinced by? I would say it's safe to be convinced, short of a big Armageddon event in the markets. In the last three years, when we launched this strategic reset that we were gonna recycle SGD 2 billion-SGD 3 billion, we ended up doing SGD 8 billion.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I think based on track record, based on this, I'll let investors make that call. As you all said, everyone, every Mr. and Mrs. Tan, Mr. and Mrs. Wong would own Singtel shares, right? We know that we have a real duty for Singaporeans. I don't want to sound like a National Day song, right? We do have a duty to Singaporeans to make money for them. Right?
Okay.
Okay, not make big money, but at least maintain, especially for the retirees, like our parents, right?
Yeah
Who probably are retired already, they want to see their nest egg growing. We have that fundamental duty. Of course, I can't guarantee things.
Yeah.
I think what we'll say is management and the board are very focused on creating value for shareholders.
I think that's a great answer because I know that management cannot say, "Yes, we're gonna grow our dividends".
Yes
In such a direct way, I think you posed very good questions.
Yes.
Are you convinced by our plan?
Correct. Yes.
Do you believe that our business is gonna grow? Of course.
Yes.
Sticking with our dividend policy.
Correct. Yes.
That it will grow. I think anyone who's watching this.
Yes
You're listening to all this, I think you've shared a tremendous amount of information about Singtel, what's been happening in the last two years.
Yes
What's gonna happen for the next three, four years a s well.
Correct.
I hope they can make their own decisions about this. Again, nowhere can you buy or sell anything. We're just gonna share about.
Yes. Correct.
What Singtel is all about. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Thank you. We had a lot of questions ourselves.
Yeah. Correct. Yes.
Because we looked at Singtel ourselves and as investors ourselves.
Okay. Yes.
We were wondering all these things. This just came at the right time, basically.
Okay, good. No, I'm happy to. Thank you to The Fifth Person. As I mentioned earlier to you offline, I've heard of Fifth Person many years ago in my previous life.
Wow. Thank you so much.
Fifth Person has evolved and grown to this stage, so well done.
Thank you.
I think a lot of your investors or your subscribers would rely a lot on this to find it very helpful to make investment decisions. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Thank you for inviting me. Yeah.
If our viewers have any questions about Singtel beyond this.
Okay
Who do they go to?
Who do they go to?
I'm not even telling them to go to you, but.
Okay. I think we have in the website quite clearly investor relations.
Yep.
We have an email address.
Okay.
I think we have a phone number there.
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Investors should ask us. We may not respond within an hour, but we will respond.
Okay.
I would strongly encourage investors, in addition to listening to your channels, to also, every now and then we have CSR events, we have retail engagement events. This particular year, we are extra. We're gonna shift a lot more emphasis on retail engagement.
Okay.
Our retail investors. We want to, as you said earlier, people may all suddenly wake up to Singtel, but I think there's still a lot more who still need to understand more about our story. We intend to reach out to them. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. We'll be watching Singtel ourselves.
Okay. Thank you.
I think that's pretty much it, right guys?
Yes.
Yes. All right. My name is Adam, this is Victor.
Thank you.
This is the Group CFO of Singtel, Arthur Lang. Thank you so much for being here and sharing all you know about Singtel.
Yes.
I think you've got a big job to do in Singtel.
Thank you.
We learned a lot. Thank you.
Okay. No, thank you very much. I really enjoyed myself. Really, thank you for listening, too.
All right. Any questions about Singtel, feel free to put them in the comment section. Of course, you can go to investor relations.
Yes. That's the correct section.
Singtel.com as well.
Yes. Correct.
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