SMRT

[CityFarmer]

What can we expect from a management team make up by former army regulars ?
Good army gen= good businessmen ???
Yes sir , no sir ???

You seems to suggest that army general makes bad businessmen to me, and an organisation run by ex general will have followers that are basically "yes" man type. I hope I am wrong in reading your post. There are many successful companies run by people with military background, though they are not so successful ones. Our PM and some cabinet ministers were ex generals too.

I think SMRT at this stage needs some form of a tighter control and discipline similar to what's in the army. Not long ago, Desmond Kuek was interviewed in CNA, and IMO he is an action and driven man tasked to do the job many would shun away. At the minimum, I think he can communicate better with our transport minister who is himself a ex army guy.

I am not so negative with SMRT now, in fact I am seeing value emerging in this company. To me, SMRT is similar to a "too big to fail" organisation. If we can see beyond this dark period, good times will come for SMRT. Just my 2c.

I share your view on the ex-army managers.

In others' posts, ROE was used instead of ROA. Using ROA as a benchmark is more appropriate, IMO. FYI, ROA of around 10% is the performance before the recent "service disruption crisis" i.e before FY2012.

BTW, one of the impending changes for public transport is the "asset-light" model, which mean the gov will bear most of the capex. It will change the capital structure of the company, thus the ROA benchmark might become irrelevant in due course.

I think the company still has "chance", but not till we have more certainties, IMO

(not vested)