High standard of corporate governance in Aus

Australia was found to have a high standard of corporate governance across it’s listed companies last year, a new report by Aberdeen Standard Investments has shown.

The Global ESG Report measured the social aspects of many countries’ capitalist activities, in a bid to focus on longer-term measures of national success.

Andrew Preston, Aberdeen Standard Investments’ head of governance in Australia, said good boards appointed good senior managers, which led to successful businesses.

“Aberdeen Standard Investments’ Asia-Pacific ESG team firmly believes that companies with well constituted boards with respect to skills, diversity, and independence, combined with reasonable tenure, can work with management to effectively develop and implement appropriate strategies,” Preston said.

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In the sphere of corporate governance, there was a stronger emphasis on Australian small cap companies.

“They tend to have tight control from the founders, so they are more likely to benefit from constructive dialogue on corporate governance,” Preston said.

“Global small cap stocks have also outperformed large caps in 2019, do not suffer from concentration bias and offer stronger earnings growth.”