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Public Listed Companies (PLCs) from Malaysia continue to emerge amongst the top scorers in the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard Country Report and Assessments 2013-2014, released by the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) today.
The regional collaboration, led by Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) and supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was introduced in 2011 to raise the corporate governance standards and practices of ASEAN PLCs and profile well-governed listed companies for greater international visibility.
In the Report, a total of 529 PLCs from six countries, namely Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam were assessed. Out of the 529 companies evaluated, more than 67% of them has a market capitalisation of USD1 billion each.
The average score for the top 100 Malaysian PLCs increased by 15.09%, from 62.29 points in 2012 to 71.69 points in 2013. Overall, Malaysia PLCs ranked at second, closely behind Thailand and scored higher than PLCs from Singapore.
“Excellence in corporate governance is an important and strategic component in promoting ASEAN as an asset class and in the overall development of ASEAN capital markets. This corporate governance initiative which complements other initiatives under the ACMF reflects the collective and strong commitment by ASEAN member countries to achieve convergence as an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015,” said Datuk Ranjit Ajit Singh, Chairman of the Securities Commission Malaysia.
The Scorecard was created by a group of corporate governance experts from the six participating countries, using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance as the main benchmark. The guiding principles cover areas such as Rights of Shareholders, Equitable treatment of Shareholders, Role of Stakeholders, Disclosure and Transparency and Responsibilities of the Board.
The report highlights areas of strengths and areas for further improvement, which provide regulators, PLCs and other stakeholders useful data points to guide corporate governance reforms, strategies, and measures in their respective country.
Shigeko Hattori, Director of the Public Management, Financial Sector and Trade Division of the Southeast Asia Department, ADB, said “The country report helps regulators and other stakeholders identify CG trends across ASEAN countries, which also serve to highlight ASEAN best practices to the international community.”
A domestic ranking body (DRB) from each participating country was appointed to conduct the corporate governance assessment based on publicly available and accessible information such as annual reports, corporate websites, notices, and circulars. In ensuring independence and fair assessment, the results by the DRB were subjected to peer review by a ranking body from another country prior to it being finalised.
The report may be downloaded from ACMF’s website at www.acmf.org ADB’s website at www.adb.org and SC’s website at www.sc.com.my
