Is Lee Hsien Yang Getting Paid Enough?
I know I'm not going to win any friends by saying this, but I don't think Lee Hsien Yang is getting paid enough, as CEO of Singapore Telecom.
The latest annual report shows he got paid 4.2% more at S$2.22 mln in cash for the year ending March 31, 2006. He also got 1.64 million performance shares, which are worth far more than the cash salary.
So why don't you come out now with your comments, about how he's just there because he is Lee Kuan Yew's son and Lee Hsien Loong's brother. Or that it's all his underlings who do all the real work. Let's get that out of the way, so I can tell you what I see is really going on.
Having interviewed Lee Hsien Yang many times for CNBC and MediaCorp Radio, my assessment is this:
It was Lee Hsien Yang who put SingTel on the map. His strategy of buying or buying stakes in Bharti, Advanced Info Service, Telkomsel, Optus and others was brilliant.
Arguably, it should have been the other way around in many of these cases. Given the size of the Australian and Thai populations, it should have been Optus or AIS that should have bought out SingTel!
But they didn’t.
Few other telcos have the same bragging rights as SingTel does.
Look at the shambles Telstra got itself into with its ill-fated PCCW deals six years ago!
What pan-Asian strategy do the players have which SingTel has invested in?
And meantime, where is Telekom Malaysia? A near-30% stake in MobileOne isn't going to give them a pan-Asian strategy.
Granted, they have larger domestic markets to contend with and in some cases, such as Telekom New Zealand and Telstra, pretty onerous obligations to look after their domestic customer base first – particularly in rural areas.
SingTel had to go out and invest in telcos around the region.
But SingTel is the only one that has really made a go of it.
All that means that shareholders got paid more, too.
There's the proposed S$2.3 bln capital return and a hike in the dividend.
That should be good compensation for investors who bought at the five year high of S$2.84 set eleven months ago, and analysts surveyed by Reuters are predicting the stock will rise to S$3.
So I say: good on him, and he deserves every cent of the money he got!
ArchivesThe latest annual report shows he got paid 4.2% more at S$2.22 mln in cash for the year ending March 31, 2006. He also got 1.64 million performance shares, which are worth far more than the cash salary.
So why don't you come out now with your comments, about how he's just there because he is Lee Kuan Yew's son and Lee Hsien Loong's brother. Or that it's all his underlings who do all the real work. Let's get that out of the way, so I can tell you what I see is really going on.
Having interviewed Lee Hsien Yang many times for CNBC and MediaCorp Radio, my assessment is this:
It was Lee Hsien Yang who put SingTel on the map. His strategy of buying or buying stakes in Bharti, Advanced Info Service, Telkomsel, Optus and others was brilliant.
Arguably, it should have been the other way around in many of these cases. Given the size of the Australian and Thai populations, it should have been Optus or AIS that should have bought out SingTel!
But they didn’t.
Few other telcos have the same bragging rights as SingTel does.
Look at the shambles Telstra got itself into with its ill-fated PCCW deals six years ago!
What pan-Asian strategy do the players have which SingTel has invested in?
And meantime, where is Telekom Malaysia? A near-30% stake in MobileOne isn't going to give them a pan-Asian strategy.
Granted, they have larger domestic markets to contend with and in some cases, such as Telekom New Zealand and Telstra, pretty onerous obligations to look after their domestic customer base first – particularly in rural areas.
SingTel had to go out and invest in telcos around the region.
But SingTel is the only one that has really made a go of it.
All that means that shareholders got paid more, too.
There's the proposed S$2.3 bln capital return and a hike in the dividend.
That should be good compensation for investors who bought at the five year high of S$2.84 set eleven months ago, and analysts surveyed by Reuters are predicting the stock will rise to S$3.
So I say: good on him, and he deserves every cent of the money he got!
January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 January 2009
