Venture Corp stays ahead amid changing times

In the 2019 edition of the Billion Dollar Club, Venture Corporation was named the overall winner across all industry sectors. Still under the capable leadership of chairman and CEO Wong Ngit Liong, the company has retained this title this year. And of course, it is the overall winner in its sector as well, on top of being ranked top for returns to sharehold- ers and growth in profit after tax.

The company, set up in 1989, is widely acknowledged as one the biggest success stories of the Singapore manufacturing sector, which remains a core of the economy through the decades.

Venture has stayed ahead amid changing times, expanding its offerings to marketing research, design, as well as research and development of a wide range of products needed by customers in growing and high-tech industries. These range from printing and imaging, to networking and communications devices, handheld interactive scanning and computing products, advanced storage systems and devices, financial-related equipment and technology, industrial, power and energy-related products, test and measurement equipment and instrumentation, medical and healthcare devices, as well as life science equipment.

From its base in Singapore, Venture manages more than 30 subsidiaries across the world and has more than 12,000 people in its headcount.

For the period under evaluation, Venture, like all other companies, faced trade tensions and geopolitical uncertainties. Yet, it managed to make itself a more valuable partner to its clients that consist largely of the Forbes 500 constituents. According to Wong in the company's 2019 annual report, its performance that year reflects the strength of the deep partnerships built over the years, as well as new customers won over by Venture’s proven capabilities and track record.

The company is typically coy about saying who its customers are, but Wong hints at playing multiple roles in “breakthrough technologies” by some of these new customers which can be “impactful” on the company’s earnings.

While Venture was able to grow its revenue by 4.3% y-o-y to $3.6 billion for FY2019 ended Dec 31, 2019, earnings in the same period were $363.1 million, down 1.9%, as the company faced some pricing pressure.

Even so, the company has kept up its track record of being generous to shareholders with its dividend payout, with a total of 70 cents paid for FY2019 — up by almost 100 times since 1992, when it paid 0.75 cent. Some $2.3 billion in dividends have been paid since then.

StarHub has been facing stiff competition in the mobile phone industry. Its pay-TV business, meanwhile, faces rapidly changing consumer preferences for other forms of video consumption. Yet, with weighted return on equity of 39.63 times over the evaluation period, the company is able to win the top spot for this category within the industry sector. The company is in the midst of a transformation exercise, as it looks for cost-cutting initiatives while investing in new and fast-growing areas, such as cybersecurity, which helps to drive growth momentum at its enterprise business.