Thanks to $1.5 billion booked from the partial divestment of its Comcentre corporate headquarters and the regular trimming of its stake in listed associate Bharti Airtel, including most recently, $2 billion from selling a 1.2% stake on May 16, Singtel has already met more than half of this $6 billion target.
Back in FY2020 to FY2023, when Singtel was out of investors’ favour because of dividend cuts and a series of writedowns as attempts to venture into new businesses fizzled out, its share price was punished so heavily that the combined market value of its regional mobile associates alone was around the same as Singtel’s market cap at that time. This was one of the reasons why investors ignored the value of its resilient domestic operations and sprawling Australia unit.
In November 2023, when the telco sensed operating earnings were on the mend, it put forward a revised guidance for a core dividend payout ratio of between 70% and 90% of its earnings. Less than half a year later, Singtel introduced a so-called value realisation dividend of between 3 cents and 6 cents, drawing from net proceeds of its asset monetisation target of $6 billion, after setting aside capex needed to fund future growth.
