April 19, 2002 - Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) announced today the retrenchment of 65 employees with effect from tomorrow. The move follows a consolidation of resources, made possible by the relocation of all its business operations from News Centre and Times House to the new headquarters at Toa Payoh North as well as a review of operations in the Security department.

"The company is realising the benefits of resource synergy with almost all business operations under one roof," said Mr Wee Leong How, Executive Vice President, Human Resources & Corporate Relations. "Unfortunately, redundancies are unavoidable when the operations in some areas which used to run in both centres are now integrated at one location."

The affected staff are from the Production department, the Administration division and the Information Technology division. They include seven executives.

Added Mr Wee, "We have made every possible effort to find alternative employment within the organisation for the affected staff. Unfortunately, the company was not able to re-deploy the 65 staff to other areas of work and has to take the painful decision of retrenchment as a last resort."

SPH will inform most of the affected staff today and will assist them in every way possible. This includes getting in touch with some organisations for possible placements within these companies for affected staff. The company's union, the SPH Employees' Union, has also arranged for a representative from the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) to advise affected staff on possible options in the job market and register them in its database of job-seekers.

Affected staff with more than three years of service will be given three months' notice pay and one month's salary for every year of service, subject to a maximum of 25 months. Those with less than three years of service will receive one month's notice pay and one month's ex-gratia payment.

Issued by Singapore Press Holdings Limited.

For more information, please contact:

Esther Low
Executive, Corporate Communications
Tel: 6319 1280
Email: lowjwe@sph.com.sg

Main board listed Singapore Press Holdings Limited is the leading news and information provider, offering quality content for print, Internet, TV and radio. It is licensed to publish 11 newspapers in the four official languages and six lifestyle periodicals. Everyday, SPH newspapers reach 2.68 million individuals or 89 percent of persons above 15 years old in Singapore while online publication of its six main dailies enjoy some 120 million pageviews a month. SPH has ventured into the broadcast medium and in less than five months, Channel U, its Chinese TV channel, became the second most-watched free-to-air channel in Singapore.