India becomes Sembcorp's second largest asset base

Singapore: India has emerged a strong market for Sembcorp Industries (SCI) with capital expenditure during the first half of this year totalling SGD 200.65 million, or 49 per cent of SGD410.07 million.

Comparatively, SCI's second highest spending was in Singapore at SGD 144.16 million, or 35 per cent of the total, according to latest financial report released on Friday.

India has also become the second largest asset base for SCI, totalling SGD 6.33 billion, or 27 per cent of the total SGD22.82 billion. SCI still holds highest assets in Singapore at SGD 9.535 billion, or 42 per cent of the total.

Given the strong investment opportunities, India now ranks SCI's third largest market, having generated a revenue of SGD 924.76 million or 15 per cent of the total $6.1 billion for half year ended 30 June, 2018.

SCI generated SGD 2.076 billion, or 34 per cent, of the total revenue from Singapore and SGD 1.08 billion, or 18 per cent, from Rest of Europe for the first six months of this year.

SCI's half-year group turnover of SGD 6.1 billion rose by 38.6 per cent over SGD 4.4 billion for the same period in 2017.

While utilities performed well, lower marine business volume reduced pre-tax profit by 13.2 (rpt) 13.2 per cent to SGD 204.6 million from SGD 235.84 million over H1 2017. Net profit was 7.9 per cent lower at SGD 158.6 million for Jan-June 2018.

Among its latest investments in India, SCI's subsidiary Sembcorp Energy India Limited (SEIL) has been formally awarded a 300-megawatt wind power project since March this year.