Lex专栏：新加坡电信股价

Sorry, there was interference on the line. Was that a decline in revenues at Singapore Telecom? Is that right? So what about the dividend?

对不起，线路有干扰。是说新加坡电信(Singapore Telecom)营收下降吗？是这样么？那么股息呢？

Investors in Asian telecoms stocks, used to fat payouts from industry behemoths such as SingTel, need not fear too much from their darling’s first forecast revenue decline since it acquired Australia’s Optus a decade ago. The expected slippage – a low single-digit decline for the year to March 2013 from the expected low single-digit growth – is related to tough competition in Australia. There is less drama below the headline: SingTel’s earnings at the operating level should be unaffected owing to tight controls and a reorganisation. That has helped produce a juicy $1.8bn in free cash flow in six months, and nearly half as much again is expected by March. Those dividends therefore look safe.

亚洲电信类股票的投资者已习惯于新加坡电信这样的行业巨头派发优厚股息，他们无需对新加坡电信自10年前收购澳大利亚Optus以来首次营收预测下降太过担忧。这一预期下滑（在截至2013年3月的一年里，从预期较小个位数的增长，下调为较小个位数的下降）与澳大利亚竞争激烈有关。该资讯标题背后并无太多戏剧因素：新加坡电信运营层面的利润不会受到影响，得益于严格的控制和重组。这有助于过去6个月内产生了18亿美元的自由现金流，预期3月以前还将产生接近上述水平一半的现金流。因此那些股息看起来是安全的。

The real question is what SingTel does with the cash besides comfort shareholders. Its minority holdings across Asia and Africa have made it a one-stop shop for investors wanting quick exposure to emerging and frontier markets where demand for mobile services will grow. SingTel’s decision earlier this year to focus on digital opportunities suggests that it will consider more acquisitions. The usual caveats apply over monitoring prices and performance of future deals. Not all of its bets have worked out: it has just reclassified its 30 per cent of Pakistan’s Warid as available for sale, thus removing the operator’s $15m-odd of losses from the income statement. In April, it wrote off its investment in Bangladeshi operator PBTL.

真正的问题是，除了抚慰股东以外，新加坡电信对其现金流还将如何利用。它在亚洲和非洲的少数股权，使其成为那些想要迅速建立新兴和前沿市场（那里的移动服务需求将会增长）敞口的投资者的一站式投资工具。新加坡电信今年早些时候决定专注于数字机遇，似乎表明它将考虑更多收购。按照一般惯例，投资者需要关注价格和未来交易表现。该公司并非所有押注都成功：它刚刚将巴基斯坦Warid电信30%的股份重新列为“待销售，从而在损益表上消除了来自该运营商逾1500万美元的亏损。今年4月它还注销了对孟加拉运营商PBTL的投资。

And still, the cash juggernaut rolls on. Investors award SingTel a higher forward price/earnings ratio than the global industry average (13 versus 12) partly for that reason. That seems fair, but quite enough while investors wait to gauge the depth of this slowdown and what SingTel does with the cash.

尽管如此，现金流巨轮继续转动。投资者将新加坡电信股价推向更高的预期市盈率，超过全球行业平均水平（13比12），部分缘于此因素。这看起来是公平的，但在投资者评估这轮放缓的深度以及新加坡电信对现金的利用之际，这样的市盈率够高了。

Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析