PSE Bell Awards to be held on Nov. 25

FOR THE fourth straight year, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is set to honor publicly listed companies and trading participants which exemplify good governance.

The 4th PSE Bell Awards for good corporate governance will be held on Nov. 25 at the Makati Shangri-La.

“The PSE recognizes the crucial role good governance plays in ensuring sound corporate practices and safeguarding investor confidence. We hope that through the Bell Awards, we continue to encourage all our listed companies and trading participants to excel in corporate governance,” PSE president and chief executive Hans Sicat said.

Since 2012, the PSE has been evaluating listed companies based on their compliance with the corporate governance guidelines and relevant rules and regulations. The PSE has also been assessing trading participants based on their performance in regulatory audits and compliance with market regulations and trading rules.

Corporate governance refers to the system of rules, practices and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. This essentially involves balancing the interests of the many stakeholders such as shareholders, management, customers, suppliers, financiers, government and the community.

Based on the 2014 Asian Development Bank country reports of the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS), corporate governance practices have improved for the Philippines’ top-tier corporations in the last few years as capital market regulators in the region started working more closely to promote best global practices. The reform momentum, however, has not yet cascaded well to the rest of publicly listed companies.

The average corporate governance scores of the top 100 publicly listed firms in the Philippines rose to 67.02 points in 2014 from 58 points in 2013 and 48.91 points in 2012. The score for these top-tier corporations has thus improved for the third straight year.

In terms of the average score for all 252 companies listed on the PSE, the country’s overall score in the ACGS, however, dipped from 53.8 points in 2012 to 51.1 points in 2013-2014. These scores suggest that the smaller listed companies need to worker harder to meet the bar set by top-tier peers.