OREANDA-NEWS. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the Exchange), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx), today (Friday) published the findings of its latest review of listed issuers' corporate governance practices.

The review involved analysing the disclosures made by 1,237 issuers in their 2014 annual reports, covering the financial period from 1 January to 31 December 2014.

Findings of the review included the following:

  • 35% of issuers complied with all the Code Provisions ("CPs").
  • 98% of issuers complied with 70 or more CPs, out of 75.
  • Issuers with a larger market capitalisation achieved a higher overall compliance rate than those with a smaller market capitalisation.

The review also included the Exchange's comments on the quality of the explanations in relation to the five CPs with the lowest compliance rates.

"The issuers have continued to achieve a high rate of compliance on the CPs.  The substantive revision of the Code1 in 2012 and the introduction of the board diversity CP in 2013 have been widely adopted by the issuers.  However, there is room for improvement on the overall quality of explanations on why the issuers chose to deviate from the CPs." said David Graham, HKEx's Chief Regulatory Officer and Head of Listing.

Issuers are reminded that the amendments relating to the internal control section of the Code will apply to issuers' accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2016.