SINGAPORE – Singtel chairman Lee Theng Kiat requested to receive and was paid $960,000 in chairman’s fees for the 2023 financial year ended March, instead of the all-in chairman’s fee of $1.15 million.
Mr Lee also requested to receive the lower amount of $960,000 in chairman’s fees for FY2024, according to Singtel’s 2023 annual report released on Tuesday.
The company noted that the chairman received car-related benefits of $15,908 for FY2023 as well.
In FY2023, Mr Lee missed one out of four corporate governance and nominations committee meetings held and both Optus advisory committee meetings held.
According to Singtel’s annual report, the all-in chairman’s fee for FY2024 takes into account the chairman’s role in providing oversight and guidance to management, and the amount of time he spends on Singtel matters, as well as comparable benchmarks from Singapore-listed companies.
The fee will be paid in cash and Singtel shares.
In a separate sustainability report released on Tuesday, Singtel said it will bring forward its net-zero goal to 2045 from 2050.
This will be achieved by reducing energy use, improving energy efficiency and increasing the proportion of electricity consumption backed by renewable energy sources, the company said.
Singtel has also updated its 2030 science-based targets to ensure that the company is aligned to the 1.5 deg C climate scenario, as included in the Paris Agreement. The targets are still pending validation by the Science Based Targets initiative.
Under the company’s sustainability financing programme, it issued a sustainability-linked bond and two sustainability-linked credit facilities with climate-related sustainability performance targets (SPTs) in financial year 2023.
These include a US$100 million (S$135 million) digital sustainability-linked bond, a $500 million sustainability-linked revolving credit facility and a A$1.4 billion (S$1.3 billion) sustainability-linked revolving credit facility.
The company also noted that its total greenhouse gas emissions in financial year 2023 across all three emissions scopes stood at 4,007,299 tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (tCO2e), down 53.6 per cent from financial year 2022.
Scope 1 and 2 emissions stood at 438,957tCO2e, 11.3 per cent lower than in financial year 2022 and 20.5 per cent lower than that of Singtel’s 2015 baseline. It added that it has met its SPTs for its sustainability-linked loans and bonds for the year.
Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, while Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.
The Business Times has contacted Singtel to understand if these performance targets will be updated as a result of the earlier net-zero target.
Shares of Singtel closed down two cents, or 0.8 per cent, at $2.48 on Monday before the reports were released. THE BUSINESS TIMES
