BDO gets high marks for corporate ethics

BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO), the country’s largest lender, recently received the Institu­tional Investors Governance Awards given to companies that scored high marks in the Asean Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS) in the re­cent Investors Forum.

The ACGS is bench­marked on international best practices on corporate gover­nance of publicly-listed com­panies in the Asean region.

BDO said in a press state­ment that the ACGS is a use­ful tool to demonstrate Asean members’ commitment to sound corporate governance vital in increasing foreign di­rect investment in the region.

The scorecard was creat­ed by the Asean Capital Mar­kets Forum and launched in 2011 as one of the initiatives in preparation for the Asean eco­nomic integration in 2015 that would create a huge potential market worth $2.6 trillion cov­ering more than 622 million people.

The award was given by institutional investors in partnership with the Fund Manager Association of the Philippines, the Philippine In­vestment Funds Association, the Trust Officers Association of the Philippines and PJS Corporate Support, Inc.

Aside from BDO, other awardees included SM Prime Holdings Inc, Manila Water Co. Inc, Philex Mining Corp., Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., Globe Telecom Inc., GT Capi­tal Holdings Inc., Manila Elec­tric Co., Ayala Corp., PLDT Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands, Energy Development Corp., International Contain­er Terminal Services Inc., and Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co.

In adhering to sound cor­porate governance practices, corporation are afforded with long business sustainability and resiliency, important tools in increasingly competitive re­gional business landscape, ac­cording.

Excellence in corpo­rate governance will also be a highlight in the Philippine Stock Exchange inc. (PSE) Bell Awards set on November 10 to recognize publicly listed com­panies and trading participants that serve as exemplars of good governance.

PSE has announced that the fifth edition of the Bell Awards for Excellence in Cor­porate Governance on No­vember 10, 2016 will honor the awardees that have made it to the lists of companies ad­hering to the highest standards of corporate governance.

“As a proponent of cor­porate governance, the PSE supports listed companies and trading participants that go the extra mile to ensure that they adhere to the highest stan­dards of corporate governance. Carrying out and institution­alizing the principles of cor­porate governance not only benefits a company and its shareholders but the market as a whole,” PSE Chief Operating Office Roel A. Refran said.

The Bell Awards is the primary corporate gover­nance award-giving body for publicly listed companies and trading participants in the country. The PSE launched the Bell Awards in 2012 to give due distinction to PLCs and TPs that have excellent corporate governance pro­grams and practices. The screening process assessed listed companies’ compliance with PSE’s corporate gover­nance guidelines and com­pliance with relevant rules and regulations while trading participants were evaluated based on their performance in regulatory audits and com­pliance with market regula­tions and trading rules.

The PSE Bell Awardees for 2015 were Aboitiz Equity Venture, Inc., China Banking Corp., Globe Telecom Inc., Philex Mining Corp. and Phil­ippine Long Distance Tele­phone Co. The recipients of the 2015 Bell Awards in the Trading Participants Category were Credit Suisse Securities (Philippines) Inc., Deutsche Regis Partners Inc., Maybank ATR Kim Eng Securities Inc., Macquarie Capital Securities (Philippines) Inc., and R.S. Lim & Company Inc.