SMRT's profits crashed 44.1% to $14.2m

But here's why no one is surprised.

According to OCBC Investment Research, as expected, SMRT reported another set of lacklustre results for 3QFY14. Although revenue climbed 4.1% YoY to S$293.3m due to positive contribution from all segments except its Taxi and LRT operations, PATMI dipped 44.1% to S$14.2m as operating expenses increased at a faster pace of 10.6%.

Here's more:

The main culprit was a 21.4% hike in SMRT’s staff costs to S$119.6m, which formed 40.8% of its topline, versus 35.0% in 3QFY13.

For 9MFY14, revenue rose 4.3% to S$874.4m but PATMI slumped 52.8% to S$45.0m. SMRT’s Rail operations (Train and LRT combined) recorded its first ever quarterly loss of S$0.2m in 3QFY14, while its overall fare business (Train, Bus and LRT) suffered a S$9.0m operating loss, in contrast to 3QFY13’s S$7.4m operating profit.

In terms of balance sheet strength, SMRT’s net gearing increased from 8.3% as at 31 Dec 2012 to 63.7% as at 31 Dec 2013, largely due to the payment of S$392.7m for 17 trains and operating assets taken over from the LTA.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia