Singtel posts record full-year profit

Singtel has reported a record full-year profit of S$5.45 billion ($4.06 billion) for the 12 months ending in March, mostly as a result of the windfall the company received from the NetLink NBN Trust IPO last year.

Singtel was required to divest 75% of its 100% stake in NetLink NBN Trust, the network company for Singapore’s next-generation national broadband network (NG-NBN), as a condition of the operator winning the tender for the NG-NBN project.

NetLink NBN Trust completed an IPO that was more than two times oversubscribed in July, providing Singtel with a roughly S$2.3 billion windfall.

Excluding this impact, underlying profit fell 8% as a result of a lower contribution from regional mobile associate Bharti Airtel and the lower economic interest in NetLink NBN Trust as a result of the divestment.

Revenue for the year grew 5% to S$17.64 billion, driven by growth in mobile and fixed broadband customer numbers at Singtel’s wholly-owned Australian subsidiary Optus, as well as higher contributions from the group’s Digital Life division.

Optus’ full-year revenue grew 3% as the company added 384,000 new mobile customers and 225,000 new NBN broadband customers.

But Singtel’s share of pre-tax earnings from Singtel’s network of regional mobile associates fell 13.2% to S$2.3 billion due in part to the ongoing challenges faced by Bharti Airtel.

For the current year, Optus is projecting a low single digit growth in consolidated revenue and flat ebitda. Dividends from Singtel’s network of regional associates are meanwhile expected to be around S$1.4 billion.