SPH sheds 140 jobs in restructuring exercise

Singapore

SINGAPORE Press Holdings (SPH) is shedding 140 jobs in a restructuring of its media sales and magazine operations as the pandemic puts pressure on advertising revenue.

In a filing to the Singapore Exchange on Tuesday, SPH said that 140 staff from the media solutions division and SPH Magazines will be affected, incurring about S$8 million in retrenchment costs that will be recognised in Q4 FY20. The 140 roles represent 5 per cent of the headcount for SPH's media businesses.

This comes as the group has been working to transform its media business and is grappling with declining advertising revenue due to Covid-19. Last year, SPH - which owns The Business Times - embarked on a review of its media business to offer advertisers more effective marketing solutions by taking on an integrated sales approach across its various platforms and titles.

Aside from introducing self-service options to tailor campaigns for advertisers, it has also ramped up efforts to share content across its print, digital and voice platforms. "The streamlining of operations for greater efficiency and synergy led to the redundancy of some roles," said SPH.

SPH chief executive Ng Yat Chung said: "Subscriptions and readership of our news titles have increased since the onset of Covid-19. However, the economic downturn has significantly impacted our advertising revenue. A more integrated approach of producing and selling our content across our various platforms will allow us to deal more efficiently and effectively with the new level of demand we are seeing from our advertisers and audience."

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The Ministry of Manpower, the Creative Media and Publishing Union (CMPU) and NTUC have been informed, and affected staff will receive compensation based on the terms agreed to by the union. SPH has also been working together with the union and NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) to ensure that affected staff receive support during this period, including in areas such as employability training, career coaching and job placement.

David Teo, president of CMPU, said: "SPH management informed CMPU in advance of its restructuring exercise. Since then, CMPU has worked closely with SPH management to ensure the restructuring exercise was conducted in line with guidelines stated in NTUC's Fair Retrenchment Framework as well as the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment." Mr Teo added that both CMPU and SPH's management jointly reviewed the selection criteria to safeguard the Singaporean core as far as possible, and that the union negotiated for a fair compensation package for affected employees.

In response to queries from BT on why the company was carrying out retrenchments despite government measures such as the extended Jobs Support Scheme, a spokesperson for SPH pointed out the economy will not recover in the short to medium term, and that the "government support measures will not last long".

At the same time, SPH's advertising revenue has been hit significantly by the economic downturn and is not expected to recover to pre-Covid levels in the short term. The spokesperson added: "The exercise also reduces duplication with the merger of our marketing solutions division and SPH Magazines to ensure operational efficiency." Since the pandemic struck earlier this year, SPH has reviewed costs, reduced discretionary spending and introduced salary cuts for senior management. It has also streamlined and centralised common functions where possible. Since April, its directors - including Mr Ng - and senior management have taken voluntary pay cuts of 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

Last year, the group cut about 130 jobs as it sought to control costs, which affected its media solutions division, magazines and smaller subsidiaries. In 2017, it retrenched 130 employees across the newsrooms and integrated marketing division. In FY19, SPH's total headcount stood at 4,177 employees.

In a corporate presentation uploaded on SGX on Tuesday, SPH highlighted that the pandemic has had "significant adverse impact" across all business segments but highlighted a healthy balance sheet as well as cash and cash equivalents of S$866 million (as at July 31).

In the media business, ad revenue has weakened significantly, although circulations are on the rise, climbing 9.8 per cent year-on-year for FY20 thus far. Meanwhile, 288 units - or 43 per cent of all units - for Woodleigh Residences have been sold as at Aug 16, at an average selling price of S$1,892 per square foot.

SPH's purpose built student accommodation business has achieved 83 per cent of its target revenue for AY20/21 as at Aug 14, up from 75 per cent on July 10. And in the aged care business, operations continue as per normal for its Orange Valley assets with an improved bed occupancy ratio of 80 per cent for July.

Shares in SPH closed at S$1.11 on Tuesday, down one Singapore cent, before the announcement was made.