THE Minority Shareholders Watch Group (MSWG) has earmarked 54 Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs) as recipients of the ASEAN Asset Class award under the 2021 ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS) awards.
This is an encouraging improvement from 37 Malaysian PLCs being recognised as ASEAN Asset Class awardees in 2019.
First launched in 2011, the ACGS is the outcome of a successful partnership between the ASEAN Capital Market Forum (ACMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as part of the efforts to promote regional integration and ASEAN region as an asset class.
The ACGS assessment is based on publicly available information and benchmarked against international best practices of corporate governance. Six out of the 10 ASEAN member countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam participated in the biennial regional assessment.
For the 2021 ACGS assessment, the award categories are as follows:
- Top 20 ASEAN PLCs: The Top 20 ASEAN PLCs award recognises the 20 PLCs garnering the highest scores under the 2021 assessment.
- ASEAN Asset Class Award: The ASEAN Asset Class Award seeks to recognise all the ASEAN PLCs that obtained a score of 97.5 points (or at least 75% of the maximum attainable score of 130) in the 2021 assessment.
- Top three PLCs per country: The top three PLCs which garnered the highest scores per participating ASEAN member country will be recognised as the Top three PLCs for the country.
The winners
Three Malaysian PLCs were named in the Top 20 ASEAN PLCs category. They are (in alphabetical order):
- Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd
- Bursa Malaysia Bhd
- CIMB Group Holdings Bhd
As for the ASEAN Asset Class Award, there are 54 Malaysian PLCs out of the 234 ASEAN winners. The PLCs are as follows (in alphabetical order): – Dec 1, 2022
Main photo credit: The Edge Markets