Sats may reward shareholders with special dividend if there’s spare cash

[SINGAPORE] Air freight handler and inflight caterer Sats may pay out special dividend or buy back shares when it has the spare cash.

Kerry Mok, CEO of Sats said if the company has spare cash after ordinary dividend and capital expenditure, it could issue special dividends or conduct share buyback.

Mok said this at the Sats’ FY2026 earnings briefing on Tuesday (May 26).

Sats pays out 30-40 per cent of its net profit as dividends to balance rewarding shareholders with capturing investment opportunities.

Mok said: “This is important because at the end of the day, we do have a lot of growth opportunities. As I mentioned earlier, investments into AI, investments into new geographies, refreshing our assets…

“(W)hen you are the market leader, the opportunities knock on your door, and we need to be nimble enough to look at those opportunities to grab them when they are there. So we do need to make sure we have a balanced approach around how we actually manage our capital allocation.”

Sats has proposed a final dividend of S$0.05 a share, up from S$0.035 a year earlier. The full-year dividend will be S$0.07 a share – 40 per cent more than in the preceding year – if the interim dividend of S$0.02 is included.

Sats reported a net profit of S$50.7 million for its fourth quarter ended Mar 31, up 31 per cent from S$38.7 million for the corresponding period a year earlier. Revenue rose 9.8 per cent year on year to S$1.6 billion, from S$1.5 billion previously.

Earnings for the full year stood at S$285.2 million, up 17 per cent. Top line climbed by 9 per cent to about S$6.3 billion.

Looking ahead, the CEO said he is confident of achieving the FY2029 targets of S$8 billion in revenue and a 20 per cent margin for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

Sats shares climbed 5 per cent or S$0.17 to S$3.54 at 2.13 pm on Tuesday.