O&M counters taking big impairment hit

Singapore

TO those who say that Singapore's beleaguered offshore and marine (O&M) sector has arrived at an inflection point, M3 Marine's chief executive, Mike Meade has this sobering rebuttal: "We may be at the bottom of the cycle, but we are certainly not at the bottom of the clean-up."

Several others share this view that there is more bloodletting to come, and that it is not time for the industry here to celebrate just yet - despite many listed companies having bitten the bullet and taken on huge impairments.

Nine out of 15 small- to mid-cap O&M counters on The Business Times' radar posted net losses in the recent results season after taking in fresh writedowns or impairments.

Large-cap Keppel Corp's O&M arm slipped into its first quarterly loss in a decade on more than S$270 million…