SG Morning Highlights | Singtel Q3 profit falls 27.6% after booking net exceptional loss

Advancers / Decliners is 86 to 45, with 74.57 million securities worth S$95.28 million changing hands.

The US economy showed remarkable resilience at the start of the year, highlighting robust demand that's keeping inflation elevated and heaping pressure on the Federal Reserve to stomp the brakes even harder.

Retail sales rose last month by the most in nearly two years, and separate measures of manufacturing also came in better than expected, according to data out Wednesday (Feb 15). And homebuilders are feeling more confident as mortgage rates settle back from their highs late last year.

Combined with Tuesday's inflation report, which showed annual consumer price increases were higher than forecast, the figures illustrate an economy seemingly spurning the Fed's efforts to slow it down. Demand for goods and services is holding up, bolstered by a sturdy job market, while inflation remains persistent and elevated.

Sales of new private residential units in January made a strong recovery from the low volumes in December last year, with volume partly driven by returning demand from Chinese buyers.

Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) data released on Wednesday (Feb 15) showed that the total number of new private residential units sold in January was 391, boosted by the launch of Sceneca Residence, which moved 157 units. January's numbers were a 130 per cent increase from December's volume of 170 units.

Year on year, however, developer sales volume in January was still down 42.8 per cent from the 684 new units sold in the same month in 2022.

This comes after recording a net exceptional loss of S$28 million as opposed to a net exceptional gain of S$261 million the prior year – then boosted by a net gain on disposal of the telecommunications provider's 70 per cent equity stake in Indara Corporation, then known as Australia Tower Network.

In a business update on Thursday (Feb 16), Singtel said its latest quarter's net exceptional loss was mainly due to significant receivable provision by Airtel's tower associate for a major customer.

This represented a four-fold increase year on year, although January's passenger capacity was down 2.7 per cent month on month, SIA noted in a bourse filing on Wednesday (Feb 15).

In January, SIA said it continued to see strong passenger traffic and load factors across all route regions, including East Asia. During the month, the airline resumed services to Guangzhou, China, while Scoot resumed services to Balikpapan, Indonesia.

This translates to 708.27 million shares, as at 6 pm on Tuesday. That means that less than 10 per cent of its shares are now held by the public.  

The closing date of the company's privatisation offer remains at 5.30 pm on Feb 16. This follows two previous extensions – initially to Jan 19, and subsequently to Feb 2.

The FY2022 results were affected by a non-cash impairment of goodwill related to the company's investment in Cogent Holdings, Cosco said in its profit guidance posted to the Singapore bourse on Wednesday (Feb 15).

Cosco, which acquired Cogent for S$490 million in 2018, noted that it recognised goodwill of S$99 million in the acquisition.