Singapore Post

[weijian]

SP will be doing a review of what went wrong on its TradeGlobal purchase, just barely 1.5years after purchasing it in Oct2015. The results of the review would be released before the AGM in July 2017 and it would be interesting to learn together with them.

SingPost revenue rises 17.1 per cent for the full year, net profit falls 86.6 per cent on impairment charges

Following the announcement of the risk of significant impairment in the Q3 quarterly results, the Board formed an independent committee to conduct a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding SingPost’s consideration and approval of the TradeGlobal acquisition. To assure stakeholders of the independence of the review, the committee comprises Ms Elizabeth Kong, Mrs Fang Ai Lian and Mr Bob Tan, independent directors who were all appointed to the Board after the acquisition of TradeGlobal.

F17 results press release: http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/Press%20...eID=453567
TradeGlobal's accqusition in Oct2015: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/busi...6m-8247094

An interim summary report has been released by SingPost earlier this week in response to its TG purchase. While it did not go into details like names/numbers, there are a few big red flags which were systemic in nature:

- Some non executive folks seem to have went beyond their "call of duty" and involved themselves too intimately with managing. The acquisition timing is close to previous CEO Wolfgang's resignation and one may be tempted to inference at least a partial connection to it.
- Bits and pieces of information here and there. The acquisition parameters (price/forecasts etc) of TG by its prior PE parent in 2013 was not deliberated at length, was hidden and then subsequently appeared in the final SPA document.
- Due diligence, independent validations and valuations were not professional and consistent enough. Was competency simply lacking or was there a persistence by certain individuals for the M&A to go through, or simply both?

Detailed report: http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/SGX%20An...eID=461816

A few personal thoughts:
- A few spiders crawling out from the closet, indicate a high probability of skeletons inside it.
- Good people generally don't work under/for bad circumstances/results. They care about reputation more than the money.