Fortifying Our Asia Pacific Core

The Asia Pacific region has a tremendous amount of growth generated from domestic demand, not just export markets.  This domestic demand will create a need for investments in infrastructure, particularly to drive industrial growth.  Our infrastructure expertise stretches across the backbone of economic development, from the energy and power industries, to water (a basic requirement for life), industrial parks and infrastructure management systems.

Three years ago, as the world struggled through the global economic downturn, Boustead began to make a conscious effort to shift more business development resources from the global stage to the Asia Pacific – our home ground – following the trend of economic growth driven by rising consumer demand, larger and wealthier populations, and an abundance of natural resources, all spurring the demand for infrastructure.

In FY2009, during the depths of the economic crisis, under 70% of our new contract wins were in the Asia Pacific.  This rose to 71% in FY2010 and then jumped to 76% in FY2011.

As a Group that is both centred in the Asia Pacific, Boustead is well positioned at the crossroads with the relevant infrastructure expertise.

Targeting Emerging Markets

The world is undergoing a monumental shift of wealth from developed economies to Asia and other resource-rich regions, termed collectively as emerging markets.  Economic growth in emerging markets will be driven by increasing consumer demand, large populations and an abundance of natural resources, in turn spurring the demand for infrastructure.  With our expertise in infrastructure-related engineering, we are well positioned to grow with emerging markets.

Searching for Value in Acquisitions & Investments

With a healthy net cash position of almost S$200 million, we are actively searching for acquisition targets, and other investment opportunities which meet our criteria for high returns, cash flow generation, growth, quality and synergy at the right price.  Our search for value in acquisitions and investments is aimed at driving long-term growth and recurring income.

Enabling Business Model Flexibility

Our business model is focused on undertaking high value processes such as design, process engineering, project management and services.  We outsource low value processes such as fabrication to our global network of fabricators.  This has enabled us to scale up our capacity exponentially during good economic periods and reduce our capacity rapidly during recessionary economic periods such as during the recent global economic downturn.  By honing a business model with inbuilt flexibility, we are able to adapt our business operations to diverse economic situations and widespread geographic markets.

Maintaining a Cost-Conscious Culture & Lean Structure

We will continue to maintain our cost-conscious culture and lean structure, a strategy that has been consistently applied regardless of which period of the economic cycle we may be at.