Welcome, everyone to a new series that we are starting over here at InvestKaki!
At The Helm is a deep-dive into the intangibles of a company (aside from their reports and statistics) by talking to the key people behind the scenes.
The ones that run the day-to-day of the companies, and knows the ins and outs.
To kick-start the series, we talked to Eddie Ng Yew Nam, the current CEO of ASTI Holdings, and ask some burning questions.
ASTI Holdings is listed on the Singapore Exchange and provides tape and reel packaging, tape-making, and integrated circuit programming services to clients in the industrial hardware, consumer electronics, and electric vehicle industries.
In 2022, trading for its shares was suspended as it faced several compliance issues. In 2024, a new board was reconstituted to resolve them. And finally in January 2026, shares resumed trading.
Many things have happened. Let’s check in on Eddie and what’s happening at ASTI.
Q: Firstly, congratulations on the trading resumption. It must have been a hard journey for the company considering the circumstances. It's now year 3 for the turnaround. What have been the main learning lessons?
Eddie: The resumption of trading is a significant milestone for ASTI and the culmination of two years of intensive restructuring. This journey has taught us several important lessons.
Firstly, strong governance and compliance are the foundation of corporate stability.
Before 2022, the company was burdened with overdue audits, unresolved regulatory issues, and a directed delisting. This required us to work towards an exit offer for shareholders.
One thing was clear – no one wanted to engage with us until the company resolved its compliance lapses, restored financial visibility, and stabilised its operations.
Addressing these legacy issues became our first priority.
We cleared the entire audit backlog for FY2022 to FY2024, convened all overdue AGMs, and rebuilt the governance framework from the ground up. These efforts reinstated the company's standing with SGX-RegCo and were essential to restoring trust among regulators, shareholders, and customers.
Secondly, the importance of financial discipline and operational focus.
When the new board and management took over in January 2024, ASTI was facing both regulatory challenges and a downturn in the semiconductor industry. We tightened costs, rationalised loss-making operations, preserved liquidity, and ensured the business continued generating cash despite the headwinds. These measures taught us to run the organisation lean and focused without compromising service quality.
Another key takeaway is the value of transparent and consistent communication. Whether the updates were positive or challenging, we made it a point to engage openly with shareholders, regulators, customers, and advisers. This approach helped rebuild confidence and keep stakeholders aligned throughout the restructuring.
Lastly, the journey reinforced my personal conviction in the intrinsic value of ASTI.
As both a substantial shareholder and a former employee within the group, I knew the business had strong fundamentals once the structural issues were resolved. The successful resumption of trading in January 2026 is therefore not just a regulatory milestone — it reflects the collective effort of the team, the Board, our professional advisers, and the support of SGX-RegCo’s disclosure-based regime.
Overall, these past two years have demonstrated that robust compliance, sound governance, financial discipline, and transparent execution are indispensable to long-term value creation, and they will continue to guide ASTI moving forward.
Q: Going into 2026, what will be the company's core strategies? Are there any target levels or growth rates for revenue and profits? And would there be any specific leverage ratios that you are trying to target (gearing, interest debt coverage ratio, etc) that we should look out for?
Eddie: Going into 2026, our strategy remains firmly centred on strengthening and scaling our core semiconductor backend services, particularly tape & reel, IC programming, and inspection.
These are areas where ASTI has long-standing capabilities, and we see sustained demand as the semiconductor recovery gains momentum, especially following the upturn that began in FY2025.
ASTI enters 2026 on a strong footing with a debt-free balance sheet and more than S$22 million in positive working capital. This gives us the flexibility to invest prudently without taking on unnecessary leverage. Going forward, we view that maintaining low bank borrowings, having a conservative gearing, and strong interest coverage as key pillars of our financial discipline. We intend to preserve this strength as the Group expands its capacity and service offerings.
We do not publish formal forward-looking revenue or profit targets but our focus is on sustained top-line revenue growth, progressive margin improvement, and sensible cost scaling as volume increases. The trajectory in 9M25 — where we saw revenue growth, stronger gross margins, and a return to profitability — reflects the direction we intend to continue in 2026.
Ultimately, our goal is to grow sustainably, with sound governance, disciplined capital management, and strategic reinvestment. This approach ensures that ASTI’s expansion is both financially resilient and operationally scalable as the semiconductor cycle continues to strengthen.