1 Executive Summary

Background

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Corporate Governance initiative composed of the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS)and assessment and ranking of ASEAN publicly listed companies (PLCs), is among several regional initiatives of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF). This initiative has been a collaborative effort of ACMF and the Asian Development Bank since 2011.

ACMF Working Group D, the body responsible for this initiative, is now led by the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission after the handover from Securities Commission Malaysia in November 2015. Its members include capital market regulators and corporate governance proponents from the region. The ASEAN scorecard was developed based on international benchmarks such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance (2004) and the International Corporate Governance Network Corporate Governance Principles, as well as industry-leading practices from ASEAN and the world.

The first, second, and third editions of the annual ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard: Country Reports and Assessments¹ provided the impetus for raising the public’s awareness on this initiative and in profiling the top domestic PLCs from each participating country. This 2015 report, which is the fifth round of assessment, continues the momentum toward elevating the visibility of ASEAN PLCs among investors. For this round, ASEAN corporate governance experts consisting of domestic ranking bodies (DRBs) from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, including a corporate governance expert from Viet Nam, undertook the corporate governance assessment of ASEAN PLCs, which was concluded in October 2015. The DRBs were the Indonesian Institute for Corporate Directorship; the Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group, Malaysia; the Institute of Corporate Directors, Philippines; the Singapore Institute of Directors and the Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations of the National University of Singapore Business School; and the Thai Institute of