SingPost can potentially offer a ‘significant’ special dividend after sales of assets: Maybank

SINGAPORE - Beleaguered national postal service provider Singapore Post could offer a potentially “significant” special dividend after it completes its planned sale of two business units, said Maybank on Jan 3.

The bank was referring to SingPost’s

proposed divestment of its Australian logistics business Freight Management Holdings

and its potential sale of freight forwarding business Famous Holdings.

Maybank says that the sale of Famous Holdings should conclude by end-January 2025, which should raise between $80 million and $100 million in proceeds.

“We expect a significant special dividend after both businesses are sold,” said Maybank analyst Jarick Seet.

Maybank maintains its buy rating on SingPost, with a price target of 77 cents.

Shares of the troubled company closed up 2.78 per cent at 55.5 cents on Jan 3.

They have bounced back following the company’s

firing of three C-suite executives in late December 2024.

That development had caused the shares to plunge in the days after.

SingPost had been engaged in

a tussle of words with the fired executives

– former group chief executive Vincent Phang, group chief financial officer Vincent Yik, and the chief executive of the company’s international business unit Li Yu. 

They were

found to have been negligent in the handling of internal investigations over

 

a whistle-blower’s report;

questions have also been raised about whether the divestment of Freight Management Holdings could be scuppered by the sackings.

But it will not be affected, buyer Pacific Equity Partners had told The Business Times.

THE BUSINESS TIMES