Singapore’s Sea tumbles 14% after wider than expected loss

SINGAPORE: Sea Ltd posted a bigger loss than expected and withdrew its 2022 ecommerce forecast, joining other online giants struggling to gauge an increasingly uncertain global economic outlook.

Its shares dived 14% in New York, wiping Us$800mil (Rm3.57bil) off the wealth of founder Forrest Li.

Once South-east Asia’s most-valuable company, Sea’s shares have now fallen almost 80% since peaking in October.

It’s been a steep downfall for one of Singapore’s prominent tycoons, whose fortune has tanked almost Us$17bil (Rm75.9bil) from its highs. Li’s net worth of Us$5.1bil (Rm22.8bil) now makes him the fourth-wealthiest in the city-state, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The downbeat result came after Sea cut its full-year ecommerce revenue outlook in May, to a low of Us$8.5bil (Rm37.9bil) versus Us$8.9bil (Rm39.7bil) previously.

Shoppers emerging from pandemic lockdowns are cutting back on online purchases, shifting toward essentials during a potential recession. The suspension of ecommerce revenue guidance “will no doubt send unease to investors sentiment,” said Alicia Yap, analyst at Citigroup Inc.

Sea, which counts Tencent Holdings Ltd as its biggest investor, has suffered a run of setbacks this year, including a sudden ban of its most popular mobile game in India and the subsequent closure of its e-commerce operations there.

The company has been trying to boost profitability as topline growth plateaus. Secondquarter sales rose 29% to Us$2.9bil (Rm12.9bil), the slowest growth in almost five years. —