ST Engineering at all-time high after promising to raise dividends; Seatrium, UOB reveal CEO pay

SINGAPORE – Shares of Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering) rose to an all-time high after the company revealed fresh five-year targets and plans to raise dividend payouts in 2025, as well as from 2026 if revenue and profits continue to rise.

The shares touched a record of $6.91 on March 20 before closing the week at $6.62.

At a company event on March 18, ST Engineering’s chief executive Vincent Chong told investors and analysts that the company wants to be known as a yield-cum-growth stock, striking a balance between rewarding shareholders with better dividends and retaining sufficient earnings to expand the business.

He said the company is targeting revenue of $17 billion by 2029, with its defence and public security business contributing the most to that target. Its commercial aerospace business is also expected to expand.

ST Engineering’s revenue for the 2024 financial year (FY) came in at a record $11.28 billion.

With better scale and better debt management resulting in lower interest payments, it is also aiming to grow its net profit at a faster pace than its revenue over the next five years.

Consequently, the company will propose an increase in its total dividend to 18 cents per share for FY2025, up from 17 cents in FY2024.

It also announced a new dividend policy from FY2026. As it achieves progressively higher full-year earnings, it will pay out about one-third of its year-on-year increase in net profit as incremental dividends.

The company, which had been charting a string of new record highs in recent weeks, is now among the top gainers on the Straits Times Index since the start of the year, with its share price up by more than 42 per cent during the period. Some analysts see more upside to the stock and have raised their target prices by as much as 30 per cent.

Seatrium, UOB reveal CEO pay

Seatrium’s chief executive Chris Ong has been rewarded with higher pay for leading the company to its first full-year profit in seven years.

According to its FY2024 annual report published on March 21, Mr Ong received a total pay package of $4.24 million, an increase of 126.4 per cent from the previous year.

The package comprised basic pay of $929,000, performance bonus and share-based payments. For FY2023, he was paid a basic salary of $675,000 and a $1.2 million bonus.

For the year ended Dec 31, 2024, the offshore and marine specialist posted a net profit of $157 million, bouncing back from a net loss of $2 billion a year ago.

This came on the back of better cost savings and revenue of $9.2 billion, which rose 27 per cent year on year, driven mainly by strong project execution and increased business activity in repairs and upgrades. The company delivered seven projects in 2024, while also completing 231 upgrading projects.

Over 2024, Seatrium secured new orders worth $15.2 billion from new and repeat customers, the highest new-order wins in a decade.

It will be paying a 1.5 cent dividend for the year. Its shares closed at $2.16 on March 21, up by almost 3 per cent during the week.

UOB also published its 2024 annual report after the market closed on March 21.

It showed that CEO Wee Ee Cheong’s $15.05 million pay package was 5.5 per cent lower than the $15.9 million he received in 2023.

Mr Wee’s annual remuneration comprised a base salary of $1.44 million, up from $1.2 million in 2023, and a bonus of $13.56 million, down from $14.7 million in 2023. Benefits-in-kind and transport- and event-related benefits amounted to $46,944.

UOB’s net profit in 2024 grew 6 per cent from 2023 to hit a record $6.04 billion, driven by strong net fee income and trading and investment income.

In comparison, DBS Bank paid outgoing CEO Piyush Gupta $17.6 million for 2024, up 57 per cent from the year before as the bank achieved record full-year net profits of $11.4 billion.

DBS said Mr Gupta’s higher remuneration came following a pay reduction in 2023 as a result of digital disruptions to the bank’s services.

Mid-caps on the move

Interest in Singapore Exchange-listed mid-cap stocks with market capitalisations of between $1 billion and $3 billion has jumped in recent weeks, attracting some $71 million in net institutional inflows since the start of the year, according to SGX.

Data showed that the average daily turnover for this group of stocks increased about 35 per cent to $67 million in March, from $50 million in 2024.

Currently, there are 43 mid-cap stocks with a combined market value of around $75 billion on SGX.

Of these stocks, Yangzijiang Financial has seen the greatest increase in trading activity in 2025. The financial investment firm, which has seen its shares punch through a series of record highs in recent weeks, closed on March 21 at a fresh record of 72 cents, up by almost 10 per cent through the week.

Yangzijiang Financial has been on the move since early February, after a report by The Edge Singapore that the stock was substantially undervalued despite being profitable and paying out 40 per cent of its 2024 earnings as dividends.

The firm’s chairman and CEO Ren Yuanlin later told the publication that the company’s maritime investment business could see further growth as demand increases from the industry to finance ships with engines capable of using green fuels.

Supermarket operator Sheng Siong Group has had the highest return on equity (ROE) of 26.7 per cent among the SGX mid-caps in 2025 so far. ROE indicates how well a company uses the money invested by shareholders to create value.

Sheng Siong, which announced a 6.1 per cent increase in gross profit for 2024, has had a strong start to 2025 with the launch of two new stores in Singapore.

Its shares closed flat on March 21 at $1.64.

Shares of purpose-built accommodation operator Centurion Corporation advanced to an all-time high of $1.16 on March 19, bringing its market capitalisation to just shy of the $1 billion mark that qualifies it as a mid-cap stock. The shares closed the week at $1.12, up by more than 5 per cent through the week.

The company reported in February that it had more than doubled its 2024 net profit to $344.8 million, from $153.1 million in 2023. 

In January, Centurion also said it is exploring the establishment of a real estate investment trust (Reit) comprising some of its worker and student accommodation assets. If the plan materialises, the Reit will be listed on SGX.

What to look out for this week

The US will announce gross domestic product (GDP) data for the fourth quarter of 2024 on March 27.

This measures the value of the final goods and services produced in the US over the quarter. Changes in GDP are the most popular indicator of the nation’s overall economic health.