PSE ranks among top 50 PHL companies in ACGS

THE Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) was included among the top 50 best performing publicly listed companies (PLCs) in the Philippines for the second straight year on the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Countries) Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS) country reports and assessments 2013 and 2014.

PLCs of the six participating Asean member-countries were evaluated based on international standards of corporate governance, including the five Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance. The ACGS is a joint initiative of the Asean Capital Markets Forum and the Asian Development Bank.

“The PSE continues to strive to adhere to the highest standards of corporate governance as we are cognizant of the benefits of having good governance practices to the investing public and to the country. Being at the forefront of promoting good corporate governance among listed companies, we know that we ourselves have to practice the same tenets that we are espousing and the results of the recent ACGS show that we are in the right direction,” Hans B. Sicat, PSA president and chief executive officer, said.

The report noted an improvement in the average corporate governance scores from 2012 to 2013 of the top companies in terms of market capitalization. It also showed the higher scores generated in the specific categories of “Role of the Stakeholders,” “Disclosure and Transparency” and “Responsibilities of the Board.”

“We know that there is still a lot of work to be done as we aim to increase the overall scores of PLCs in the country. The coming Asean integration will highlight even more the importance of improving our corporate governance scores but we are confident that as we increase awareness on corporate governance, we can become competitive against our peers in the region,” Sicat added.

Among the key programs of the PSE in promoting awareness on corporate governance is the PSE Bell Awards that it has earlier announced will be conducted on November 10. This is the third edition of the Bell Awards to recognize the top performing listed companies and trading participants in terms of corporate governance.

The PSE also introduced new Listing Boards in 2013 that enhanced transparency and disclosure requirements, including among others, the requirement for a company to be listed to have an investor relations program. The PSE also introduced a new disclosure portal known as the PSE EDGE that allows for efficient processing, submission and distribution of disclosures. The portal is complemented by the PSE EDGE mobile application which allows users to access disclosures real-time using their smart phones and tablets.

The Asean member countries that take part in the ACGS are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. –Businessmirror