Report on the HKIoD Corporate Governance Scorecard 2020

This report presents the findings of a comprehensive study on corporate
governance practices of Hong Kong listed companies. This “Corporate
Governance Scorecard” project assesses the quality of corporate governance
practices of locally listed companies on a regular basis. This study was
commissioned by The Hong Kong Institute of Directors (HKIoD) and was
executed by the Centre for Corporate Governance and Financial Policy (CCGFP)
at Hong Kong Baptist University. The companies surveyed were constituent
stocks of four major indices. The evaluation criteria were based on international
standards (OECD Principles of Corporate Governance) and the Hong Kong
Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s Code of Corporate Governance Practices
and Recommended Best Practice for Corporate Directors. The project aims to
assist Hong Kong companies, policy makers and the public to identify ways to
improve corporate governance practices. This survey was based on researching
company data in the public domain for the financial year 2018. To respond to the latest developments in corporate governance requirements,
the questionnaire of the 2020 scorecard has incorporated some new areas of
assessment. Our findings show that most companies have shown
improvements in the basic corporate governance standards over the past 3
years. Importantly, we find that companies with improved corporate governance
standards experienced smaller declines in market valuation compared to
companies with no improvement in corporate governance standards when the
market was down. However, corporate governance is a dynamic process, with
new best practices continuously emerging. Many companies are still lagging in
the implementation of the latest trends.