Singapore Press Holdings 01 (May 08 - Nov 11)

[iam802]

Watch the support at $4.

1. tenkan sen going to cut kijun sen

2. chikou span cutting the price at August 11-18 period.

3. $4 is a very strong support having rebound 2-3 times of this mark.

[helios]

1 good news vs. 1 bad news:


17-Sept - Singapore Press Holdings' marketing division has created a new unit called the Strategic Marketing Department (SMD) tasked to help its advertisers identify new opportunities to maximise returns through integrated packages.

Headed by Geoff Tan, GM of SPH New Media, the unit will aim to engage advertisers as well as media-buying agencies to better understand its advertisers and offer them integrated packages across all the SPH platforms.

"Advertising in our newspapers has remained strong, but we cannot rest on our laurels. Advertisers are beginning to demand even better returns on their advertising or marketing dollars, and experimenting with a whole spectrum of media platforms. This move is strategic and timely," SPH's SEVP of marketing Leslie Fong, said.

_______________________________________________________________________________

17-Sept - MediaCorp Publishing's MD, Zita Ong has made her first major move since being appointed to the role in June, by putting titles, Vanilla, Kids Company, Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), and Lime on the chopping block.

The news was announced late last night by MediaCorp in a press document which also stated the company's intention to bring some of the axed titles back as online editions. At this early stage Ong would not confirm which titles could possibly make it online but Lime, a youth-oriented entertainment and lifestyle magazine appears to be a strong contender for revival. Ong says, since Lime's launch some 12 years ago, much of its target audience has migrated online. "We'll have to see if its viable to put it online," Ong says.

In addition to the four titles, the company's quarterly décor title, Style:Living will become a bi-annual supplement packaged with Style Weddings, in a bid to increase its advertising revenue.

As many as 12 employees will be affected by the news, however Ong says "nobody will be losing their jobs". Adding that, "everyone has been given options for redeployment within MediaCorp."

Out of the four magazines facing the axe, women's lifestyle magazine Vanilla is the freshest title having launched just over a year ago, and Ong admits "advertisers never opened their arms to it."

The magazine launched from the ashes of six year old parenting title Family. "We tried to change it to a women's lifestyle magazine with Vanilla but advertisers never really got it," she says.

Source: Marketing-Interactive.com

[blid2def]

Everytime somebody mentions the word "Strategic" I kinda' get this odd feeling they're really talking about short-term tactical moves. The word has been cheapened a lot these days.

[financecaptain]

Although a good defensive stock given the current economic crisis, never thought that the Company has great long term prospects. It generates good cash flows because of its monopoly in print media. But how long will print media continue to thrive ? Internet and wireless communications will drive advertisement revenue into the future. Media is very likely to be borderless as we go into the future. IPTV will threaten national TV, wireless communications will threaten how you receive yoor daily news etc..

The acquisition of Shareinvestor says it all that the management of SPH still has no clue about its strategy and roadmap. I think Company needs to have new blood in new media to have any serious breakthrough in their corporate strategy. Is Company management still dominated by the old corporate people ? Other than the fact that they will generate good cash in the medium term and strong cash balance at the moment, the Company really have no future or standing in the new media age.

[iam802]

Our defensive stock, SPH, is breaking down.

Today, cross a very strong support at $4.

[ishak]

SPH to publish books
BT, 17 Sep 2008

Media giant Singapore Press Holdings is setting up a new book publishing business, under its subsidiary Straits Times Press Limited.

To jump-start its new venture, STPress has taken over the contracts and intellectual property rights of SNP International Publishing (SNPIP), the book publishing arm of SNP Corp.

Mr Patrick Daniel, editor in chief of SPH's English and Malay Newspapers who will chair the STPress board, said: 'We're delighted to get back into book publishing. It is a natural extension of our newspaper business. We have many excellent writers, photographers and artists, and a wealth of content waiting to be tapped. We're confident of the business potential in this sector.'

The six-member editorial and design team from SNPIP helmed by publishing veteran Shirley Hew, 59 and publishing manager Shova Loh, 57, will join the new subsidiary.

The transaction is not expected to have any material impact on the earnings per share or the net tangible assets per share of SPH for the financiaul year ending 31 Aug 2009, said an SPH statement on Wednesday.

[b0rderc0llie]

SPH dabbling in so many things ah... I suggest they merge with Singapore Pools and sell Toto

[blid2def]

SPH dabbling in so many things ah... I suggest they merge with Singapore Pools and sell Toto

Oi! That one is the long term Huatopedia strategy. Don't kachiaow Singapore Pools okay?

[helios]

SPH to publish books

Media giant Singapore Press Holdings is setting up a new book publishing business, under its subsidiary Straits Times Press Limited.

To jump-start its new venture, STPress has taken over the contracts and intellectual property rights of SNP International Publishing (SNPIP), the book publishing arm of SNP Corp.

Mr Patrick Daniel, editor in chief of SPH's English and Malay Newspapers who will chair the STPress board, said: 'We're delighted to get back into book publishing. It is a natural extension of our newspaper business. We have many excellent writers, photographers and artists, and a wealth of content waiting to be tapped. We're confident of the business potential in this sector.'

>>> some add-ons:

SNP International Publishing has relinquished its intellectual property rights and has also staffed the business was a six-person team headed by publishing veteran Shirley Hew, who will take on the title of executive director of Straits Times Press. Patrick Daniel, editor-in-chief of SPH's English and Malay Newspapers Division (EMND), will then chair the Straits Times Press board.

"We worked together very successfully as separate entities in the past. Now, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of SPH, we will be able to realise and unlock value across the board in breadth and depth. While continuing our ongoing publishing programme comprising coffee-table commemorative books, our first priority is to add publishing opportunities to the Group. We will offer SPH yet another channel in the world of multi-platform publishing," Hew said.

The new subsidiary will work closely with The Straits Times, STOMP, and Straits Times Razor TV, an interactive web TV service.

In 1984 Times Publishing merged with The Straits Times Press and Singapore News and Publications to form SPH, forming a S$1.4 billion publishing conglomerate. Eventually in 1989 SPH split with Times Publishing, creating a separate listed company to hold its book publishing arm, as it focused on newspaper publishing.

[ishak]

August AdEx grew 8.9%
19 Sep 2008
Price Target : 12-month S$ 4.63 (Prev S$ 5.75)
Reason for Report : Company Update
Potential Catalyst: Earnings growth and execution; special dividends

Story: In the latest Nielsen Media Research's AdEx figures, expenditure on SPH's newspaper display and classified ads rose 8.9% y-o-y in Aug. Based on SPH's full year (Sep 07 - Aug 08), advertising expenditure grew 7% y-o-y, which is similar to our full year estimates.

Point: We note that AdEx tends to correlate with economic growth. In view of a more challenging outlook, we are assuming flat AdEx growth in FY09F (from a 2.5% growth previously). We also assumed higher newsprint cost of US$850/mt, up from US$710 previously assumed. As such, we trimmed our FY09F net profit down by c.8% to S$490.4m. On a bear-case scenario, assuming an 11% plunge in AdEx as per 1998, we estimate that our net profit forecast for FY09F could drop to S$427m, 13% lower than our current estimates. This would equate to a TP of S$3.97 – still above current trading price - assuming all other factors remain constant. However, in our opinion and at this point in time, we do not see such a drastic
drop as per 1998.

Relevance: Maintain Buy, TP: S$4.63. Along with a potential slow down in AdEx and a de-rating of the market, we now peg the newspaper operations to 16x FY09F earnings (from 20x previously). Our SOTP valuation is hence revised to S$4.63. In the current volatile market, we like SPH for its defensive feature backed by an attractive net dividend yield of >7.5%. In the last 6 years, SPH have paid out more than 90% of its EBIT). SPH should be reporting its 4Q and FY08 results on 10 Oct and we are projecting a final dividend of 24 Scts (on top of interim dividend of 8 Scts), given growth in core
publishing business, growth in its property rental and further revenue recognition from its Sky@Eleven residential development.