Night of Triumph for Corporate Governance

by Lynette Khoo, Feb 21 2008They reached out to their shareholders. They scaled high standards with their financial reporting, with no compromise on disclosure. And in their book, corporate governance was not just a snappy buzzword but at the heart of running their business. For that, these public-listed companies were honoured last night at the Singapore Corporate Awards (SCA) gala dinner.

The awards - organised by The Business Times and supported by the Singapore Exchange (SGX), among others - are in their third year running. They aim to honour the very best for setting the pace in corporate governance in Singapore, not just in form but also in substance. After a vigorous assessment by the SCA committee, which went far deeper than the checklist approach, several company boards, managements and individuals stood tall. Five boards were honoured for the high quality of corporate governance in their practices, 10 companies for their excellence in investor relations and 13 for the high standards of disclosure in their financial reporting. SGX swept two golds - the Best Managed Board Award and the Best Investor Relations Award (big cap category). It also won a bronze in the Best Annual Report category (big cap).

Banyan Tree Holdings' CEO Ho Kwon Ping and Sincere Watch CEO Tay Liam Wee were named CEOs of the Year, and StarHub and Micro-Mechanics (Holdings) chief financial officers Kwek Buck Chye and Chow Kam Wing, respectively, won the CFO of the Year Awards.

Banyan Tree also clinched the Best Annual Report Gold Award for its maiden annual report under the New Listings (Open Category), while StarHub won the Silver award for Best Investor Relations in the big cap category. In her foreword to the awards booklet, SGX's head of risk management & regulation, Yeo Lian Sim, who chairs the main committee of the SCA, noted that oftentimes, public interest is only aroused and codes of conduct or rules changed when some form of financial misconduct arises. But 'good governance is too important to be managed by exception', she said. She wished that more small companies had participated in the awards and hoped that would be the case next year.

Minister of State for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hua stressed that having a corporate governance framework is critical to all companies, whether big or small. She pointed to the Commercial Affairs Department's annual report, which revealed that small private companies are equally vulnerable to the type of financial shenanigans that may plague the larger companies. Pointing to the importance of events such as the SCA, she said: 'Just as wrong-doers would be punished for contravening the law, similarly there is a need to give due recognition to companies that have adopted good corporate governance practices, enforced them diligently and, in many cases, decided to go beyond the recommended best practices.'

Apart from SGX, the awards were supported by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore, Singapore Institute of Directors, Citigate Dewe Rogerson i.MAGE, Corporate Governance and Financial Reporting Centre of NUS Business School, AON Consulting Worldwide, Egon Zehnder International, Investment Management Association of Singapore and Securities Investors Association (Singapore).