Keppel Corporation BN4 continued to pare its stake in Seatrium . On July 28, Keppel sold 50 million shares in Seatrium on the open market for $7.26 million or 14.52 cents each. This lowered its stake in Seatrium to 2.1496% from 3.37% previously.
Keppel has reduced its stake in Seatrium on several occasions after Seatrium was merged with Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M) on Feb 28.
These included May 2 when Keppel sold 6.03 million Seatrium shares for $0.74 million or 12.2 cents each, lowering its stake to 4.38%.
On June 5, Keppel sold another 42 million Seatrium shares for $5.17 million or 12.3 cents each.
Formerly known as Sembcorp Marine, Seatrium merged with Keppel O&M earlier this year to form one of the world’s largest offshore and marine energy engineering companies.
In 1HFY2023 ended June, Keppel reported a net profit of over $3.6 billion, compared to a net profit of $498 million in the same period last year. This was the highest profit on record in its 55-year history, thanks to a $3.3 billion disposal gain from the sale of Keppel O&M.
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On the other hand, Seatrium reported a net loss of $264.4 million in 1HFY2023 ended June.
This was 85% higher than its net loss of $142.9 million in 1HFY2022.
The steeper losses were posted despite revenues more than doubling y-o-y to $2.89 billion, led by “strong operational execution, achievement of production milestones and initial contributions from new projects”.
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Seatrium says it expects to remain in the red for the full year.
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Jardine member in buybacks
Hongkong Land H78 continued to buy back its shares from the open market.
On July 31, Hongkong Land repurchased yet another 1.3 million shares for US$4.64 million ($6.23 million) in total or US$3.5698 each.
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The transaction brings the group’s total issued share capital to 2.21 billion ordinary shares.
Year to date, the group has bought back a total of 13.6 million shares from the open market at an average price of over US$4.
According to Hongkong Land’s results statement on July 28, the group has invested about US$599 million since it announced its US$1 billion share buyback programme in September 2021 and July 2022. The programme will end in December.
The group says it has reduced its total share capital by 5.1% as at July 28.
At that time, the group said that the buyback was in line with its long-standing capital allocation practice which is to prioritise investing in new assets, a continued payment of steady and increasing dividends over time, as well as investing in existing assets on an “opportunistic basis, including through share buybacks”.
Hongkong Land reported a loss of US$333 million in 1HFY2023 ended June, down from its earnings of US$292 million for the same period the year before.
The figure reflected unrealised losses from the group’s revaluations of US$755 million from its investment properties largely due to the group’s Hong Kong office portfolio.
However, the group says its investment properties portfolio remains “resilient”, thanks to better performance by its luxury retail portfolio, which more than offset lower contribution from its Hong Kong office portfolio.
