Beyond a new CEO, a reset for CapitaLand?

CAPITALAND'S announcement last Friday evening that its president and group chief executive officer Lim Ming Yan would be retiring at the end of this year surprised quite a few in the market.

BT's check with equity analysts covering the company drew few comments. However, some sources suggest that Mr Lim could have come under pressure from the board over the returns that the group has been generating, including the vital metric of return on equity (ROE).

To his credit, Mr Lim did manage to bump up the ROE to 8.5 per cent for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2017, meeting the target of delivering a sustainable ROE of over 8 per cent in the medium term mentioned in the 2014 annual report. This followed ROE of 6.6 per cent in FY2016, 6.1 per cent in FY2015, 7.1 per cent in FY2014 and 5.4 per cent in FY2013.