SingTel Last:4.13

+0.01

Singtel Bullish???

now can consider is good buy ~ 2.93 Smiley

SingTel’s SCS unit raises stake in Ayala to 51%

Written by The Edge

Wednesday, 28 October 2009 13:02

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) says wholly-owned subsidiary SCS Computer Systems (SCS), has purchased a total of 8,476,400 shares in Ayala Systems Technology for 7,204,940 Philippine Pesos ($214,850) or 0.85 Philippine Pesos per share.

The shares were purchased from Azalea Technology Investments, Inc., BPI Computer Systems Corporation, and Mitsubishi Corporation, Inc.

The acquisition represents 21%. of the issued share capital of Ayala Systems.

This increases SCS’s shareholding in Ayala Systems from 30% to 51%, making Ayala Systems a subsidiary of SingTel.

The other 49% of Ayala Systems continues to be held by Azalea.

DJ UPDATE: SingTel May Float Australian Unit Optus - Sources

28 October 2009 12:24

By Costas Paris, P.R. Venkat and Se Young Lee Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (Z74.SG) is considering selling a minority stake in its Australian unit Optus through an initial public offering in Australia that could raise between US$4 billion and US$5 billion, two people familiar with the situation said Wednesday.

The people told Dow Jones Newswires that the plan is still at an early stage and that no final decision has been made. They also said that a deal won't likely materialize until after 2010.

One of the people said SingTel could use the proceeds to gain a foothold in Vietnam, China or Africa.

"There's not too much money to be made in Australia; it's a mature market and competition is very intense," the person said. "Right now SingTel is thinking of selling a minority stake, but this can change depending on market conditions."

SingTel, Southeast Asia's largest telecommunications firm by revenue, took control of Optus in 2001 through a bid valuing the Australian telecommunications firm at A$17 billion.

Though Optus is a cash cow for SingTel, some analysts have voiced concerns about the unit's margins. Its Ebitda margin fell to 23.0% in the fiscal first quarter ended June 30 compared with 25.3% at the same time a year earlier and 27.8% in the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year ended March 31.

Some analysts also said the margin pressure could intensify further with Vodafone Hutchison Australia - a mobile joint venture between Vodafone and Hutchison Australia - set to challenge Optus for share in the Australian market that's led by Telstra.

Increasing competition for Bharti Airtel Ltd. (532454.BY), SingTel's largest bottom-line contributor among its six major foreign mobile associates, may also give fresh impetus for SingTel to make another acquisition in an emerging market to boost earnings growth.

SingTel has said it is evaluating investment opportunities in China, and people familiar with the situation have said in the past that the company is interested in taking a stake in Vietnam's MobiFone. It had also looked at investing in Ghana Telecom in 2007 but chose not to bid for it.

An analyst with a foreign brokerage who declined to be named said that while an acquisition would be beneficial in theory, it will be difficult to pull it off given SingTel's lack of familiarity with Africa as well as regulatory hurdles in China and Vietnam.

-By Costas Paris, P.R. Venkat and Se Young Lee, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 6415 4151, costas.paris@dowjones.com

Massive Fines For Optus And Telstra Over Poor Service

By Computer Daily News | Tuesday | 27/10/2009
Mobile phone carriers in Australia have been hit with massive fines after failing to deliver adequate service for mobile phone owners. As a result, Comms and Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy has threatened further reforms of the telecommunications industry after the massive spike in complaints from customers reported by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

TIO Deidre O'Donnell said she had responded to 230,065 complaints from consumers and small businesses in 2008-09, a 54 per cent rise on the previous year. Telstra was the worst offender with 103,831 complaints, close to half the 230,065 total received by the TIO.

"This report is an absolute shocker," Conroy told Network Ten yesterday. He said the Rudd Government would consider taking action to ensure greater competition and a better deal for consumers. But he would work with the TIO to decided what was needed to crack down on companies that continued to mistreat their customers.

Telstra and Optus are already copping pretty hefty penalties over the TIO complaints the ombudsman's office charges the telcos for each complaint handed. O'Donnell's report shows that in 2008-09 Telstra was invoiced $14.2 million with its BigPond online operation copping another $3 million, for a total of more than $17.2 million.

Optus copped a $4 million bill, while AAPT was invoiced $563,547 and ISP iiNet received a demand for $137,906.

From OCBC Investment Research (20 Oct) :
Maintain BUY with S$3.51 fair value
developments in the pay-TV space are positive for SingTel - especially as
it works towards "stickiness" ahead of the NBN launch. This is also in line
with SingTel's vision to transform itself from a traditional telco into a leading
multi-media solutions provider. With its 2QFY10 results just around the
corner, we hold off revising our estimates. However, we continue to favour

SingTel's defensive earnings and potential to expand regionally. Maintain. Overall, we believe that the

BUY with S$3.51 fair value.

glad i am not vested. haha lets wait for $2.92

samuel_ng ( Date: 16-Oct-2009 14:30) Posted:

Looks like its not going to be...

frosin ( Date: 13-Oct-2009 10:52) Posted:

Lets see if Singtel hits 3.21 this week. If it does, it will go back to its normal trading that would see it rally above 3.30 when earnings comes. Good luck to those vested.

Looks like its not going to be...

frosin ( Date: 13-Oct-2009 10:52) Posted:

Lets see if Singtel hits 3.21 this week. If it does, it will go back to its normal trading that would see it rally above 3.30 when earnings comes. Good luck to those vested.

Asia Markets

Oct. 15, 2009, 2:59 a.m. EDT ·

India telecom shares caught in tariff war

By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- A raging price war in the Indian mobile-phone sector is scaring telecom investors away from previously favored stocks and forcing analysts to downgrade service providers across the board.

Although India remains the world's fastest-growing market by subscriber additions, moves by some players to slash rates -- that were already among the lowest in the world -- are raising concerns that the price wars will be prolonged and hurt industry earnings.

Shares of Bharti Airtel, India's largest wireless operator by subscribers, have slumped nearly 20% so far this month, as analysts fear it will be forced to soon respond to tariff cuts announced by smaller peers in recent weeks.

Such fears strengthened after Bharti Airtel's subscriber additions fell to 2.51 million in September, slowing from the 2.81 million subscribers added by the company in the previous month.

"This is the first monthly reduction in Bharti's [subscriber additions] and highlights the impact of reduced tariffs from competition, primarily Tata DoCoMo," J.P. Morgan analysts led by Manoj Singla wrote in a report.

Tata DoCoMo is the mobile-services brand of India's Tata Teleservices, in which Japan's NTT DoCoMo /quotes/comstock/!9437 (JP:9437 134,900, +500.00, +0.37%) /quotes/comstock/11i!ntdmf (NTDMF 1,603, +110.68, +7.42%) has a 26% stake. The latest round of price wars started when Tata DoCoMo introduced a per-second billing plan several weeks ago, switching away from the industry norm of per-minute billing.

More recently, India's No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications, or RCom, and rival Idea Cellular each responded by reducing their respective rates, raising fears that industry leader Bharti will be forced to respond.

Shares of rival RCom have slumped more than 24%, while those of Idea Cellular have dropped nearly 17% so far in September, following the announcement of rate reductions.

Bharti /quotes/comstock/11i!bhti.f (BHTI.F 0.00, 0.00, 0.00%) had 110 million subscribers as of the end of September, still more than Vodafone Essar's 82.8 million subscribers, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam's 53.4 million and Idea's 51.5 million.

RCom /quotes/comstock/11i!rlcm.f (RLCM.F 0.00, 0.00, 0.00%) and Tata DoCoMo -- which offer services based on both GSM and CDMA technical standards -- have yet to announce their September subscriber numbers.

"With RCom expected to gain share from October due to its new plan, we believe that Bharti would have to finally reduce tariffs in line with peers," J.P. Morgan wrote. "We believe that tariff wars in the Indian telecom industry could intensify further over the next few months, and we remain fundamentally negative on the sector. We would advise selling on every share price bounce in the sector."

Estimates slashed

In addition to downgrading the sector, several analysts have also slashed mobile operators' earnings estimates in view of the price wars.

Macquarie Group, for instance, downgraded the entire sector to underperform and cut Idea's earnings per-share estimates for the year starting April 1 by as much as 86%. It also lowered Bharti's EPS estimate for next year by 27.5%.

"This rapid rebasing in pricing by an incumbent will seriously affect and threaten smaller, regional and start-up operators, perhaps shortening the period before which industry consolidation takes place," Macquarie wrote recently.

However, "while we would view this as ultimately a structural positive for Bharti, which we believe is the best positioned of all the operators to weather an intense period of irritational price competition, the timing of possible industry consolidation is too uncertain to consider this in our investment recommendation," it said.

In Thursday's trading, shares of Bharti fell 0.8% and RCom gained 0.5%, while Idea advanced 1.4%. The 30-stock Sensex slipped 0.2% to 17,206.10.

The declines contrasted with gains elsewhere in Asian, where Japan's Nikkei rose 1.8%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.6% and South Korea's Kospi gained 0.5%, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index up 0.9% and China's Shanghai Composite 0.4% higher.

Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau

Sometimes, I just hope they look around and see before saying things. "unrivalled 3G network"? in terms of infrastructure, starhub and M1 are way ahead on the 28 and 21 mbps level already.Content wise for iphone, I think they are because no one else has those phones yet.

SingTel offers iPhones from as low as $0

I REFER to the letter, "SingTel should lower iPhone prices", by Mr Nelson Quah (my paper, Oct 15).

At SingTel, we want to offer our customers the most innovative products at the best value with an unparalleled customer experience.

We are pleased to have been the first operator to bring both the iPhone and iPhone 3GS to Singapore at very attractive prices, from as low as zero dollar.

Coupled with our unrivalled 3G mobile network coverage and our innovative services such as Live TV, our customers are enjoying a superior iPhone 3GS experience.

When we introduced the iPhone 3GS in July, we also allowed our existing iPhone customers to do an early upgrade if they had completed at least six months of their 24-month contract, a first in the industry.

We wish to assure our customers that we review our price plans regularly to ensure that they offer the best value and remain competitive.

We aim to provide the latest and most innovative mobile devices and services to enhance our customers' mobile lifestyles.

Our ongoing partnership with Apple will enable us to continue introducing its cutting-edge products to our customers.

We thank Mr Quah for his feedback.

Ms Cheam Tze Hui
Corporate Communications Manager
SingTel

Dont worry...trust me it will...give it some time to react and then CORRECT soon !! BIG time ! :D

frosin ( Date: 16-Oct-2009 09:27) Posted:

Bharti closed at new low of Rs 324.20, which translate to Singtel losses of 7.5 cents from $3.04. Singtel should be hitting $2.96 at this point in time to recognise the lossess in their investment.

Somehow Singtel suddenly don't react to Bharti losses, its been 3 consecutive falling days already.

frosin ( Date: 08-Oct-2009 21:23) Posted:

Moving from $3.06 down to $3.04, Singtel lost another S$318.536m today adding to a total of S$3,822.432m from before the fall.

Bharti last trade is at Rs 334.65. From its previous of Rs 435.5, the share has lost about 23.2% or Rs 383 billion (S$11.5b). At 30%, Singtel lost S$3.46b.

Comparing S$3.82b losses of Singtel market capitalization to S$3.46b losses in terms of holding Bharti shares mark to market, it can be said that the losses is efficiently reflected into Singtel's share prices at S$3.04. It is possible that Singtel is under valued by S$0.36b or S$0.02.

Bharti short term outlook is as illustrated by the indian market analysts. It is generally expected that the stock stay afloat above Rs 350 and target of Rs 356.Latest is by Mohindar in an interview on CNBC mentioned that despite the shorts are limited, there will be a long bottom before the share picks up strength to move up.

Oct 08, 2009    Bharti Airtel can slip 4-5%: Mohindar
Oct 08, 2009    Hold Bharti Airtel, target of Rs 390: Sharekhan
Oct 08, 2009    Bharti Airtel has support at Rs 330-350: Gujral
Oct 07, 2009    Reduce Bharti Airtel, target of Rs 356: IIFL
Oct 07, 2009    Hold Bharti Airtel: Gujral
Oct 07, 2009    Buy Bharti Airtel at Rs 350-360: Harihar
Oct 06, 2009    Bharti Airtel has support at 320-350: Gujral
Oct 06, 2009    Bharti Airtel has support at Rs 350-370: H Kapadia
Oct 06, 2009    Buy Bharti Airtel at Rs 365-370: Bhamre
Oct 06, 2009    Bharti Airtel has support at Rs 363-365: Anu Jain
Oct 05, 2009    Buy Bharti Airtel, says Dhawan
Oct 05, 2009    Don't buy Bharti Airtel: Baliga
Oct 05, 2009    Bharti Airtel has target of Rs 485: M Thacker
Oct 05, 2009    Buy Bharti Airtel on dips: RR Financial Consultants

Given the immense downside already, I think this price of $3.04 is fairly reasonable. In fact, it might be slightly ahead of the fall. Bharti vs Singtel market capitalisation is S$38,271,828,230.32 vs S$48,417,472,000.00 as of market close. Breaking into parts, Singtel currently have 30% or S$11,481,548,469.10 in Bharti. The remaining of Singtel market cap worth S$36,935,923,530.90, or $2.32 per share, is elsewhere.

Each time Bharti fall(rise) by Rs 1.39, Singtel lose(gain) an amount equivalent to 1 cent per share. 5% downside is Rs 16.73 or 12 cents equivalent. Rs 15.35 minimal upside is 11 cents upside. This will create a trading range between S$2.92 to S$3.15 purely in response to Bharti news. However, Singtel has a large portion of other businesses that is unaffected and still doing well or improving.

Earning season is coming again. Singtel's strong earning growth remains intact and is likely to announce some healthy results despite the net asset valuation expected to fall if the mark to market was done for Bharti. Singtel's recent initiatives and iPhone sales are likely to improve operating income. Moreover, the EPL rights are still "valuable".

Bharti, too, is expected to grow rapidly and report strong results. It should still be noted that the recent market movement were on the basis of speculation of a highly likely government regulation for more competition. This would affect future earnings of telecoms. However, Bharti is diversifying from India already but not as much as desirable to not be affected by this news.

I believe next month's earning will send Singtel back to $3.30 and above. *one other point is that past Bharti surges in stock prices did not affect Singtel by as much or as efficiently. It might be true that Singtel is undervalued.