Comfort needs to reinvent itself before it becomes a museum piece

MINIATURES of ComfortDelgro Corp taxis are popular children's toys in Singapore. Not for long, though. The ubiquitous blue and yellow Toyota Crown cabs are leaving the realm of kids' imagination and heading for grownup nostalgia. One day soon, they will belong in a museum.

The end is nigh for the conventional taxi business, though that was not what Comfort said in a press release announcing the purchase of 51 per cent of Uber Technologies Inc's Singapore car rental unit for S$295 million in cash.

The deal gives Comfort, the city state's largest taxi operator, access to a fleet of 12,450 private-hire vehicles at a 10 per cent discount to their net asset value, according to Nomura Holdings Inc research. ComfortDelgro shares were up as much as 4.7 per cent on Monday morning.