Why do some companies trade below what they’re worth, even when their businesses are performing well? Often the market has not understood the business, or cannot see the value tucked inside a complicated structure. The five companies below are trying to fix that in different ways, which is what makes them worth studying.
Singapore’s listed companies are getting a push to do more for their shareholders. In November 2025, MAS and SGX launched the Value Unlock programme, a S$30 million package to help listed companies sharpen their strategy, manage capital better and explain their plans to investors. Companies can unlock shareholder value in different ways, from simplifying business structures and returning excess capital to investing for future growth and improving market understanding.
Among the companies already moving, we see three levers being pulled. Some are returning spare cash to shareholders. Some are selling or spinning off businesses so each part gets valued properly. Others are putting money into newer businesses that can grow faster than the rest.
Here are five SGX-listed companies that have taken concrete steps to unlock shareholder value, and what investors can learn from each approach.
1. Jardine Matheson Southeast Asia (SGX: C07)
Jardine Matheson Southeast Asia (JMSEA), known until 1 October as Jardine Cycle & Carriage (JC&C), has spent the past two years reshaping itself.
Let’s start with what it sold. JC&C sold its stake in Siam City Cement in 2024, cut its Vinamilk stake from 10.6% to 2.5% and says it intends to sell the rest, and is exiting Toyota Motor entirely.
Then in August 2026 it agreed to sell the Cycle & Carriage motor dealerships in Singapore and Malaysia to Indonesia’s Chandra Asri for about S$265 million (US$207 million), plus an earn-out of up to S$30 million. That is the motor business most closely tied to the company’s historic Cycle & Carriage name. The sale is subject to conditions that must be satisfied or waived by 28 February 2027.
The disposals have already made the balance sheet lighter. Corporate net debt fell from US$577 million to US$286 million in the first half of 2026, before counting the Cycle & Carriage proceeds.
Then look at where the cash went. JC&C proposed a special dividend worth about US$0.73 per share, based on Toyota’s share price and exchange rates on 29 July. US$0.37 is cash. The rest comes as Toyota shares, about 18 for every 1,000 JC&C shares you own, so its value moves with Toyota’s share price. Shareholders who would rather have cash can ask JC&C to sell the Toyota shares for them, and it pays the brokerage. Add the US$0.28 interim dividend and the half-year payout was worth around US$1.01 per share at those prices. Shareholders approved the special dividend at an EGM on 1 October 2026.
At the same EGM, shareholders approved renaming the company Jardine Matheson Southeast Asia (JMSEA). That is more than cosmetic. It tells you what JMSEA wants to be, a focused holding company for its big stakes in Indonesia (50.1% of Astra International) and Vietnam (THACO and REE), with more room to deploy capital there.
What we like is the sequence. Sell the non-core stakes, pay down debt, give shareholders their share, then refocus. This is a classic value unlock approach, where simplifying the portfolio and returning capital can help investors better assess the value of the remaining business. The flip side is that the group now leans even more on Astra, so how Indonesia’s car and mining cycles play out will matter more than ever.
What to watch next is whether the Cycle & Carriage sale conditions are met before the February 2027 deadline.
2. Marco Polo Marine (SGX: 5LY)
Ten years ago, Marco Polo Marine was an offshore supply boat company going through a debt restructuring. Today it is doing two things at once. It is growing into offshore wind, and it is listing its shipyard separately so investors can see what the yard is worth.
Start with the shipyard. In September 2026, Marco Polo signed a conditional agreement to inject its shipyard business, including its yard in Batam, into Catalist-listed Fuji Offset Plates Manufacturing through a reverse takeover. The yard is valued at up to S$139 million. That is S$120 million in base consideration, paid in new Fuji Offset shares at 70.1 cents each, plus up to S$19 million more in shares if the yard hits profit targets for FY2026 and FY2027. Fuji Offset will be renamed MPSE, and Marco Polo would own about 74.1% of it before any earn-out shares or placement to meet free-float rules. The deal still needs approval from shareholders of both companies and from SGX.
Why bother? Inside Marco Polo, the shipyard is lumped in with a vessel chartering business. As a separately listed company that Marco Polo controls, it gets its own share price and can raise money for its own growth. It is the same logic LHN used with Coliwoo, which you’ll read about below. The shipyard businesses reported unaudited combined net profit after tax of S$10.6 million for the nine months to June 2026.
What stays with Marco Polo is its vessel chartering business, which serves oil and gas customers as well as offshore wind, plus control of the listed shipyard. The growth engine is offshore wind, and it rests on a ship called a CSOV, short for commissioning service operation vessel. Think of it as a floating hotel and workshop for technicians who build and maintain offshore wind farms. Marco Polo’s first CSOV went on charter in Taiwan in April 2025. A second, larger one, the CSOV Plus, is being built at the Batam yard for delivery in the second quarter of 2028. In July 2026, its offshore wind unit signed a framework agreement with Siemens Gamesa to deploy two CSOVs from 2029, with an option to start in 2028. The agreement covers Taiwan and plans cooperation in South Korea and Japan.
The group numbers are moving the right way. For the nine months to June 2026, revenue rose 30% to S$109.7 million and gross profit rose 30% to S$46.4 million, even though growth slowed in the third quarter. In the first half, profit attributable to shareholders rose 9% to S$11.6 million.
To fund the wind fleet, Marco Polo raised about S$21 million in March 2026 by placing new shares at 14.5 cents with institutional investors including Lion Global Investors and Value Partners. Existing shareholders were diluted. The bet is that a bigger wind fleet and a separately valued shipyard will be worth more than the dilution.
What to watch next is whether the reverse takeover wins those approvals, and whether earnings per share grow enough to make up for the new shares.
3. LHN (SGX: 41O)
If you have rented a room in a Coliwoo building, you’ve already met LHN.
LHN is a “space optimiser”. It takes old or underused buildings, whether owned or leased, and turns them into co-living, industrial and commercial space. In November 2025, LHN spun off its co-living business. Coliwoo Holdings listed on the SGX Mainboard, raising about S$101 million, with LHN keeping about 65%.
The listing makes Coliwoo’s value easier to see. Before it, investors had to value Coliwoo within a small conglomerate. Now Coliwoo has its own share price, so investors can put a number on LHN’s 65% stake. The IPO also brought fresh cash in. Group cash and deposits rose from S$68.9 million in September 2025 to S$139.1 million by March 2026, and net gearing fell from 46.2% to 36.0%.
In the half year to March 2026, reported attributable profit rose 18.6% to S$16.8 million, though adjusted pre-tax profit fell 8.8% to S$26.5 million. Coliwoo’s occupancy averaged 93.7% in the quarter to June 2026, and it is aiming for 4,000 rooms by end-2026.
LHN is also recycling capital. It has lined up seven stabilised properties for sale, with an indicative value of about S$218.5 million. In August 2026, it agreed to a S$134 million sale and leaseback of Coliwoo Midtown on Middle Road, and the sale of its 50% stake in the company that owns the Golden Mile Tower carpark, which should bring in about S$4.5 million in net proceeds. Selling mature assets and putting the money into new projects is the same playbook the big REIT sponsors use, at a much smaller scale. It also plans to take its facilities management arm into eldercare, and it is growing a small solar and EV charging business.
For shareholders, LHN intends to pay out at least 30% of attributable profit (adjusted for fair value changes, impairments and one-offs) for FY2026, and paid an interim dividend of 1 cent a share in June.
What to watch next is whether the Midtown sale and leaseback completes, and whether Coliwoo reaches its 4,000-room target.
4. Aoxin Q&M Dental (SGX: 1D4)
Aoxin is a turnaround with a stronger parent behind it.
The company runs 11 dental centres in Liaoning province in northern China, seven polyclinics and four hospitals, with a new hospital in Shenyang being set up. Singapore’s Q&M Dental was already a substantial shareholder, and on 30 April 2025, Q&M and its concert parties crossed 50%. That changes things. Aoxin now has a parent that has spent 30 years building one of Singapore’s largest private dental chains, with more than 100 outlets in Singapore and 36 in Malaysia, and that knows how to buy and integrate clinics.
The plan is to grow by acquisition. Aoxin has signed two non-binding MOUs in 2026. One is for a dental group in central China with 30 clinics, valued at RMB150 million. The other is for a group in southern China with 15 clinics, valued at RMB376 million. Both sellers would guarantee profits, RMB71 million over five years for the first and RMB358.5 million over ten years for the second. If completed, the two acquisitions would add about 45 clinics to Aoxin’s existing network. They would be paid half in cash and half in new Aoxin shares, which means more dilution on top of the placement below.
It has also prepared its balance sheet. In May 2026, Aoxin completed a placement of 134 million shares at about 15.7 cents, raising around S$21 million, and Q&M itself took 50 million of those shares. When the parent puts in fresh cash at the same price as outside investors, that is a signal worth noting.
Aoxin is the earliest-stage story on this list, but the building blocks are in place. It has a parent with a track record of buying and integrating clinics, fresh capital on its balance sheet, and two targets whose sellers would guarantee profits. That gives the growth plan real backing. If both deals close, Aoxin would grow from 11 centres to more than 50 and rely less on its existing centres, where first-half revenue fell 21%. Further upside hinges on both MOUs becoming binding deals on sensible terms.
What to watch next is whether either MOU becomes a binding deal, and how the new Shenyang hospital does once it opens.
5. Delfi (SGX: P34)
Older readers may remember Van Houten chocolate from the neighbourhood provision shop. Today a Singapore-listed company, Delfi, holds exclusive, perpetual rights to the Van Houten brand for chocolate and confectionery in key Asian markets. Delfi is also a leading chocolate company in Indonesia, with SilverQueen as its flagship brand, alongside Delfi, Delfi Top and Ceres.
Delfi’s value unlock is quieter than the others. It is about focusing on the brands it owns rather than the ones it distributes for others.
In the third quarter of 2025, Delfi walked away from a major agency distribution account in Indonesia. On paper that looks like giving up revenue, and agency brand sales did fall 12.4% to US$93.7 million in the first half of 2026. But excluding the account it exited, agency sales grew 29%. Meanwhile, own brand sales rose 13.3% to US$172.9 million, with growth in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Own brands now make up about two-thirds of sales.
Why does that matter? A brand you own lets you set prices and keep the margin. A brand you distribute for someone else can be taken away, because the owner controls it. The exit reduced agency sales, but growth elsewhere more than offset the lost revenue. Total sales still rose 2.7% to US$266.6 million and profit attributable to shareholders rose 5.4% to US$12.9 million, even as higher raw material costs pushed gross margin down 1.8 percentage points to 25.7%.
Delfi also shares the profit. The interim dividend of 1.05 US cents a share is a 50% payout of first-half profit, paid on 11 September 2026.
What to watch next is whether gross margin recovers from 25.7% in the next results.
So which lever matters most?
Put the five side by side and each is at a different stage.
JC&C is simplifying its portfolio, LHN has separately listed Coliwoo, and Marco Polo Marine is seeking a separate listing for its shipyard. LHN is furthest along, with Coliwoo already listed and the cash on its balance sheet. JC&C’s shareholders approved the special dividend on 1 October, while Marco Polo’s shipyard listing still needs approvals. Delfi is refining a business that already works. Aoxin is the earliest, raising capital to grow into something bigger, which means less cash back to shareholders for now and more depends on execution.
Back to the question we started with. A company can perform well and still be undervalued if the market cannot see what it has. Selling a namesake business, listing a business separately or walking away from a big client are all ways of closing that gap. The market does not always reward the effort straight away, and Marco Polo and Aoxin still have to deliver, but companies that look beyond organic growth at least give investors something to judge.
Disclosure. This article is sponsored as part of SGX’s market development initiative. However, all opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not constitute financial advice.
