Asian Pay Television Trust (APTT)

[CY09]

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/APTTUpdat...eID=866874

3Q results brought about some important info:

Page 14- 90% of debt is hedged at 1.54% for 3 years
Page 15- Onshore is a flat 7 years, offshore is 3 years with option of 2 more years *which i hope they dont use because its debt is expensive even if SORA is 0%

Page 8- Broadcast and Production costs increased despite a declining revenue base
Page 2- EBITDA Margin continues to decline.

In my view, its likely with a smaller and smaller revenue base, EBITDA margin will shrink as well. In a few years time, APTT may be a 200 million revenue, with cash generation of 100 million.

There is a need for the trust to pare down its debt quickly, otherwise, the loss in cash wont be able to sustain dividends and Maintenance CAPEX （19 and 30 mil respectively）

This trust is in a story of how fast it can pare down its debts to a sustainable level while revenue/cash inflow declines. In my view, when debt refinancing is due in 7 years' time for its TWD debt. 800million of debt should just about be fine with an interest cost of 3.6% and assuming financing fee of 2% points amortized over 7 years （annual financing cost will be $31 million）

[starcraft_76]

send the following via email to [email protected] on Nov 14, 2025 and not yet received any response so far.

--
Dear Sir / Mdm,

Being an investor of APTT, I'm concerned over the proposed transaction of issuing 
4,375,000 Investment Shares to TBC by way of a rights issue at a price
of NT$160 (the "Issue Price") for each Investment Share, which resulting in APTT losing approximately 12.71% of economic benefit in TBC.

Based on my understanding, while the majority of debt is now under TBC, there is still S$36 million which is under APTT.

Let's look at the scenario where APTT would like to maintain the existing dividend of 1.05 cents per share per year, and need cash to pay S$3.6 million of debt yearly, and required say, S$2.5 million for APTT level expenses.

This means that APTT will require cash outlay of S$21.2 million per year.
• APTT’s annual dividend: 1.05 cents × 1,437,541,561 units = S$15.1 million
• APTT’s debt service: S$3.6 million/year
• APTT’s trust-level expenses: Let’s assume S$2.5 million/year (based on historical SG&A and trustee fees)

This simply means that TBC will need to declare a distribution that resulted in APTT receiving S$21.2 million per year, which also means that S$3.09 million need to be distributed to DaDa for its 12.71%.

Isn't that the amount required to pay to DaDa out-weight the benefit saving of S$1million on interest cost?  APTT can simply pay S$2.09 million more to reduce its debt yearly instead, which will also reduce the interest moving forward.

At 3.09 million, DaDa's yield is more than 10% per year over the 29 million that it fork out.

With this in mind, is it more beneficial if APTT were to issue bonds at say 7% per year?
--

[CY09]

Thanks Starcraft, Im interested in their response as well do update us!

The 12+% economic interest given to Dada for its growing broadband segment is complex and its hard for us to evaluate the financial impact, hopefully APTT can shed some light on it

[starcraft_76]

APTT's investor relation didn't even confirm the receipt of my query.

I had send another email to request for the confirmation on whether they received my queries as per my previous posting.

---

The IR also indicate that all the debt are on the Onshore debt are on the TBC group level. Off shore debt under bermuda subsidiary, which in my interpretation is under APTT directly

So in a way

|------ Bermuda subsidiary (Off Shore Debt - SGD)
|
| |---- Broadband Business (12.73% benefit to DaDa)
APTT -- TBC Group (On shore Debt - TWD) -------- Cable TV (unchanged)
|----Premium Digital TV (unchanged)

---

What's interesting to note is that the director Lu Fang Ming had been consistently increasing his stake in APTT

[starcraft_76]

The IR had replied.  However, it is quite a lengthy response in a PDF.  Anyway that i can upload the PDF replies?

Basically, there are saying that the share issues to DaDa is for the TBC's Broadband business only, and emphasized that their biggest revenue source as of today is still Cable TV.

Ironically, what they had pitch in the financial report is with the vision that broadband revenue should eventually take over that of the cable tv.

In addition, they also dodge to provide a scenario on the financial impact to the distribution, and just stated that the distribution for FY2026 had not been affirmed and thus they are not able to comment on that.

[CY09]

Thanks Starcraft, I was aware that Dada was only investing in the broadband segment.

So I had emailed to IR with questions being specific such as (i) the proportion of dividend generated by both segments and if possible to tell me the breakdown in ratio, (ii) with DADA's 12% investment in broadband, approximately how much more is required by TBC broadband to declare dividend to upstream parent.

Do note while we share/unit holders are entitled to ask questions, my experience with many investor relations of SGX listed companies are that they are not forthcoming with answers. Through countless interactions, we need to ask specific questions. And one tip I have is: to consider it like a back-and-forth debate, I would use the window where shareholders are allowed to field written questions prior to AGM, wait for the response to build up the case to ask in person at AGM by clarifying, at times I would ask for some facts.

Its quite a tedious process to do QnA in Singapore, and one difficult episode I have is dealing with a certain large China developer listed on SGX, frequent back and forth and the CEO only speaks chinese and speaks very broad statements like lenders have faith in him and the market in region YYYY will turn around

[starcraft_76]

Thanks for sharing.

Do share the response from IR as well. Thanks!

[CY09]

IR replied to my questions:

Q1: I note that Dada will have 12.73% stake economic interest in TBC broadband segment. As APTT is the overall company which had initially owned 100% economic interest and uses the declared proceeds to repay its offshore Singapore loan in 3 years and annual dividend to shareholders, can I enquire with Dada coming on board in the broadband segment, what is: (i) The increase in estimated fund TBC would have to declare to maintain the current same amount given to APTT

APTT Response: Taiwan Broadband Communications Co., Ltd., (“TBC”), our principal subsidiary that manages the broadband business, does not publicly disclose its dividend policy. However, we would like to highlight the following:

Our Broadband business has been consistently growing its revenue. TBC is not expected to change its dividend payout following the issuance of Investment Shares to DaDa. Therefore, DaDa will receive in proportion to its 12.73% proposed shareholding, dividends/profit allocations paid by TBC. This is after taking into account the broadband business’ operational costs, capex depreciation, interest on loans and taxes. APTT will receive the remaining 87.27% of dividends/profit allocations from the broadband business and full 100% of dividends/profit allocations from the cable TV business. APTT will continue with its prudent approach to cash flow management and ensure that we have sufficient headroom after taking into account debt servicing commitments and distributions. Debt reduction remains a key priority for us, especially in the challenging business environment.

Question 2: (ii) Proportion of economic interest does (a) TBC cable and (b) TBC broadband contribute to TBC Group. For (ii), it is okay for the investor relations to reply in ratios such as 80:20, 70:30 etc.

APTT Response: While we disclose broadband and cable TV revenue separately, we do not calculate and disclose EBITDA or net profit separately for each business segment as they share a large portion of staff and other fixed costs. However, we hope the following points will help you in your analysis:

Based on our 9M 2025 results, Broadband constitutes approximately 31% of total Group revenue while cable TV (Basic and Premium digital) constitute approximately 69%. As Basic cable TV and Premium digital cable TV have content costs, their margins will be lower, compared to Broadband. Premium digital cable TV has premium content which is costlier, therefore, its margin will be a little lower than Basic cable TV margin. We also need to take into account items like capex, depreciation, debt servicing and taxes for each of the business segment.

[CY09]

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/APTTSGXRe...eID=876362

During the APTT Q&A, the CEO clarified that TBC will not adjust its dividend payout following Dada’s new share subscription. Unitholders should therefore expect a lower dividend contribution from the broadband segment.

On refinancing, the CEO explained that loans were refinanced ahead of full tenure because scheduled principal repayments increase over time, and APTT’s EBITDA would not have comfortably covered the original repayment profile. In addition, management did not want to risk refinancing too close to maturity. For financial flexibility, APTT expects its onshore loans to be refinanced every 3–4 years rather than running the full 7-year tenure.

As a result, investors should expect recurring write-offs of unamortised financing fees. Although these fees are amortised over 7 years for accounting purposes, refinancing every 3–4 years requires the remaining unamortised portion to be written down upon each refinancing exercise.

The reduction in DPU was attributed to a sharper-than-expected EBITDA decline in 2025. The Board reduced distributions to prudently manage cash flow and align with onshore loan repayment obligations. The cut was not intended to accelerate debt repayment, but rather to match scheduled loan servicing requirements.

Management expects EBITDA to continue declining and is monitoring the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to avoid breaching loan covenants. While there remains sufficient headroom currently, they are mindful that debt levels must be reduced in tandem with declining EBITDA. To avoid entering a higher-risk covenant zone, CAPEX reductions may be considered.

Finally, although broadband subscribers in Taiwan are migrating to higher-speed plans, APTT’s broadband ARPU has remained flat over the years due to increased promotional discounts offered by TBC to attract and retain customers.

[Shrivathsa]

My quick calculation was that assuming 1.05 cents annual dividend, the price was 10.9 cents per share, which is 9.6% yield.

With the revised 0.08 cents annual dividend, the imputed fair value is 8.3 cents a share at the same 9.6% yield.

My guess is that some are waiting to collect the balance 0.525 dividend, which is why it is holding at 9 cents a share.

Having said that, momentum is a double edged sword.

Just like the sharp rise from 8 cents a share (at which time it was a 13% yield) to 10.9 cents a share, which is a 36% jump, it could just as easily slip into the 7.5-7.8 cents a share range instead of holding at 8.3 cents.