Bursa Malaysia Annual Report 2015

TO OUR SHAREHOLDERS

Bursa Malaysia •

Annual Report 2015

During the year under review, we undertook the following programmes

which were attended by 501 directors and senior management of listed

issuers, and 924 company secretaries:

SEVEN TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS FOR COMPANY

SECRETARIES

ii.

SIX ADVOCACY SESSIONS ON MD&A FOR CEOs AND CFOs

OF LISTED ISSUERS

To enhance understanding of the disclosure obligations and the application

of the LR, we continued leveraging on the Listing Advisory Desk which

comprises a dedicated team to respond to enquiries on interpretation of the

LR. Through our online enquiry portal initiative (“Portal”), listed issuers and

their advisors may submit their enquiries online. In 2015, we incorporated a

new feature to the Portal, the “InterActive LR” whereby relevant provisions

of the LR are hyperlinked to published Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”)

for ease of reference. The Portal was also re-branded as AskListing@Bursa.

The turnaround times in responding to queries were swift and the Portal

recorded 2,592 enquiries in 2015.

As a result of these efforts, we continued to see improvement in the quality

of disclosures. The queries issued on announcements also remained low

at around 0.1% of total general announcements. The adherence to the

timeliness for submission of periodic financial information also remained

strong in 2015 at 99.4%, as compared to 99.5% in 2014.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE STANDARDS AND SUSTAINABILITY

PRACTICES

Bursa Malaysia is focused on building a strong culture of Corporate

Governance (”CG”) including improving the quality of CG disclosures in

annual reports. CG culture in our market has continued to grow as indicated

by the scores obtained from the ASEAN CG Scorecard 2015 which shows

overall improvement in disclosures by our listed issuers.

In 2015, in an effort to strengthen the exercise of shareholders’ rights, we

proposed mandatory poll voting. As this involves changes to the LR, the

proposed amendments have been submitted to the Securities Commission

(“SC”) for approval. In addition to strengthening our rules framework, we

also undertook engagements and advocacy covering a wide range of areas

to continuously build higher standards of CG practices and disclosure.

Approximately 1,900 directors and practitioners attended our advocacy

programmes covering topics in relation to board quality, risk management

and internal control, and CG disclosure throughout 2015.

Annually, we assess the CG statements of listed issuers with the objective of

providing feedback for improvement. In 2015, we undertook an assessment

of 450 annual reports to evaluate the quality and standard of CG disclosures

and findings were published. In addition, we provided detailed results to the

listed issuers to help them improve their disclosures. The review showed

that there is a high level of compliance with the LR and strong adherence

to the best practices in the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance 2012.

We take an inclusive approach in building a strong CG culture and in that

respect, engage and work with relevant industry gatekeepers such as the

Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group, and the Institute of Internal Auditors,

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Malaysian

Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and international

institutions such as the Global Reporting Initiative, United Nations Principles

for Responsible Investing and Sustainable Stock Exchanges to promote

good CG culture and create more awareness on sustainability. We also

engaged the Malaysian Institute of Accountants and Malaysian Institute of

Certified Public Accountants Joint Working Group to conduct two advocacy

sessions for directors and senior management on new auditor reporting

requirements and the new section on key audit matters.

MEASURES TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABILITY

We began our journey towards building sustainability practices and reporting

in 2006 and in 2010 we launched a sustainability portal as well as a guide

entitled ‘Powering Business Sustainability: A Guide for Directors’. Our listed

issuers have been disclosing their Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”)

practices since 2006 and a small number have been issuing sustainability

statements as standalone reports for several years.

Sustainability issues, for instance competition for resources (e.g. renewable

energy, water, land), and social issues (e.g. talent development, diversity,

human rights) are increasingly affecting how businesses are run today.

Research indicates that businesses which embrace sustainability have

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