SINGTEL CONNECTS
By Jennifer Lee

Lee Hsien Yang was CEO of Singapore Telecommunications for 12 years, and his resignation, submitted in July with no reason given, came as a surprise. Still, he gave the telecom company plenty of time to locate a successor: he agreed to stay until April of next year to ensure a smooth transition for the new CEO. Thus began an international search that ended at home with the selection of CFO Chua Sock Koong.

SingTel’s stock rose on the news. Chua, who came to the company in 1989 as treasurer, was project director of SingTel’s IPO in 1993, Singapore’s largest-ever. Six years later she became group CFO and in February she also became CEO of SingTel’s international operations. Along the way she garnered many awards, and she has been ranked among Fortune magazine’s top 50 women in business outside of the US for the last three years.

Indeed, Chua has been instrumental in assisting Lee in turning SingTel into the company it is today – a S$12.6 bn-a-year (US$7.5 bn) telco, with interests around
the region. SingTel owns Australia’s second-largest telco, Optus, which accounts for two-thirds of the SingTel group’s revenues, and has stakes in Advanced Info Service (21.4%), Thailand’s largest mobile phone company; Bharti Group of India (30.5%);
the Philippines’ Globe Telecom (44.6%); Telkomsel of Indonesia (35%); Pacific Bangladesh Telecom (45%); and APT Satellite of Hong Kong (20.3%). As CEO of the international division, a position she holds concurrent with her CFO post, all of these businesses come under Chua’s watch, as well as Singapore’s largest IT group, NCS, which started as the government’s in-house IT department.

Chua is widely expected to maintain the company’s current path – one of calculated diversification. Said Chua in an interview with CFO Asia last February: “Where SingTel stands out is in our execution. We’ve been very disciplined in our approach to new investments. If there are deals where we’re not comfortable, we won’t overpay … But of course, if we come to a situation where we think there are no good deals, we are quite happy to return money to shareholders. Things do come in cycles. When the valuations correct themselves, we will be happy to go back to the market.” (See “On the Record,” February, 2006 issue.)

The search is now on for a new CFO to replace Chua. If her current role as CFO stays intact, that person will need to have the ability to oversee finance, corporate affairs, and information systems. And of course, have an eye for a bargain.