Exclusive: Unveiling Project Magellan, SingTel’s Guiding Vision for Acquisitions

(Original photo: islaythedragon.com)

SingTel’s series of acquisitions and investments has turned many heads in the Southeast Asian tech scene. The buying spree seems to have started off with Amobee, a U.S.-based mobile ad solution company which the group acquired for a whopping $321 million in March this year. That was followed by the acquisition of food sites, HungryGoWhere and Eatability. And more recently, it invested in G-Mobi, TMG, and Pixable.

Does SingTel (ASX:SGT) have some grand vision that guides all these investments and acquisitions? Yes, it does. A source tells me that this entire strategy is dubbed “Project Magellan.” I was briefly shown a fascinating deck of slides that detailed the route map and goals of the project.

In short, Project Magellan [1] identifies several key areas in the digital industry which might be the next big boom – including online recommendations (thus the acquisition of food sites), digital advertising solutions, home technology, education, and e-commerce (this last one is especially interesting with so many e-commerce players in Southeast Asia already).

An ex-employee of SingTel Digital Media (STDM) told me that Project Magellan isn’t new and in fact has already been planned out and structured since STDM and SingTel Innov8 were established. I’m told that InSing.com, the online portal owned by STDM, is also part of the Project Magellan initiative. Whatever company is acquired, its services, if possible, will likely be ported over to InSing – just like how HungryGoWhere is now integrated into the portal.

I also learned that InSing has been bleeding money badly for the last three to four years. But of course, SingTel has no problem financing it.

When I asked a SingTel spokesperson for an official comment about Project Magellan, I was told:

SingTel is focused on creating new growth platforms that leverage and strengthen its core carriage business, through complementary digital content and services that are relevant and personalized to customers, as they live, work and play. To support this, SingTel may make strategic investments to gain important capabilities, drive growth in adjacent industries and extend the Group’s customer relationships.

That statement doesn’t confirm the existence of Project Megallan, but the direction stated is somewhat similar to what I’ve come to understand about the project. A second insider source told me that there will be several more acquisitions coming up.

SingTel isn’t just acquiring and investing. It’s also going to create its own services. For example, a current SingTel employee told me that Singtel is “going into online reservations of appointments for clinics.” Some might also recall NewsLoop, a mobile news reader app, produced by SingTel.

Truth be told, there hasn’t been much real activity happening in Southeast Asia recently, so it is good that SingTel is making waves and keeping this tech community alive – and, along the way, making some entrepreneurs rich.