Along with its results announced on Feb 5, Keppel announced that Piyush Gupta, former group CEO of DBS Group Holdings, has been appointed chairman of Keppel as of April 17. He is taking over from Danny Teoh, who is retiring after 15 years at Keppel's board.
The company also announced a special dividend of 2 cents per share (as defined below) in cash and one unit in Keppel REIT for every nine shares in the company. The rationale for the proposed special dividend is to reward Keppel shareholders with value unlocked from completed asset monetisation.
Altogether, the proposed total dividend for FY2025 is approximately 47 cents per Keppel share, up 38% from FY2024, comprising ordinary cash dividends of 34 cents per share, of which the proposed final cash dividend is 19 cents; interim dividend was 15 cents.
The special dividend is around 13 cents, comprising cash of 2 cents and dividend-in-specie of one Keppel REIT unit for every nine Keppel shares held, which is equivalent to approximately 11 cents per share based on Keppel REIT’s closing market price of $0.98 on Feb 3.
Keppel announced it will continue to pay ordinary dividends based on the New Keppel’s performance. In addition, it aims to pay out special dividends based on 10%-15% of the gross value of asset monetisation transactions completed in the financial year, until the company’s monetisation programme is completed. The actual percentage will depend on the company’s growth plans as well as cash generated.
For FY2025, the gross value of the asset monetisation completed was approximately $1.6 billion.
See also: CLCT reports lower 2HFY2025 DPU of 2.33 cents, full-year DPU of 4.82 cents
In FY2025, Keppel’s accounting net profit after minority interests fell by 23.9% y-o-y to $741.45 million.
Including the non-core portfolio for divestment and discontinued operations, Keppel delivered overall net profit of $789 million in FY 025, compared with $940 million for FY2024, mainly due to the accounting loss of $222 million arising from the proposed sale of M1’s telco business.
However, the new Keppel’s net profit excluding non-core portfolio for divestment and discontinued operations rose by 39% y-o-y to $1.1 billion, underpinned by higher contributions from all three business segments, infrastructure, real estate and connectivity. Recurring income grew to $941 million in FY2025, up 21% y-o-y and free cash flow for the year $611 million.
