Quarterly reporting review receives lukewarm response

Only 26 respondents, mainly professional bodies, gave feedback to governance council

THE advent of quarterly reporting sparked plenty of griping within Corporate Singapore, but when it came to the crunch at an official review few people bothered to give an opinion.

BIGGER PRIORITIES: 'Companies like us are focused on keeping the business running and developing a global strategy - key to the future of the company. This takes time and effort.' -- Mr Foo, CEO of Apex-Pal, which is exempt from quarterly reporting.

The practice affects more than 200 listed companies here, but only 26 respondents - firms, professional bodies and individuals - answered a feedback request from the Council on Corporate Disclosure and Governance (CCDG).

One accountant noted: 'The interested parties - listed companies, especially smaller ones which are likely to be most affected - did not respond.'

Some firms said their views were well-represented by various professional associations, while others felt that quarterly reporting was here to stay so why make a fuss about it. And for some it was all just too hard.

Of the 26 who did respond, 19 were generally in favour of the practice - introduced in 2003 - which requires larger listed companies to report their results every three months.

Any company with market capitalisation above $75 million - an estimated 235 of the 600 plus firms listed here - has to comply with the ruling.

Yet only five such firms responded - ComfortDelGro, DBS Group, Singapore Exchange, Singapore Press Holdings and Singapore Power. The latter is not listed, but has a subsidiary on the mainboard.

But Associate Professor Mak Yuen Teen, a co-director of the Corporate Governance and Financial Reporting Centre, noted that there 'was a large segment of the business community which responded'.

He cited accounting bodies such as the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore, the Singapore Exchange itself, the Association of Banks in Singapore, the Law Society and Temasek Holdings.

Mr Douglas Foo, chief executive of exempt firm Apex-Pal International, said quarterly reporting was an important issue, but firms like his 'are focused on keeping the business running and developing a global strategy'.

The executive director of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce (SICC), Mr Philip Overmyer, was sympathetic.

'Small companies may not have the resources to respond or they may not even have heard of the consultation paper,' he said.

'Large companies...have more resources to (respond).'

The SICC itself did not participate. Mr Overmyer said: 'It was partly a workload issue. It was difficult over Chinese New Year to get a reasonable number of companies to respond to us so that we could provide a formal response.' The consultation period ran from Jan 13 to Feb 28.

He added: 'While SICC sees great interest from the Government in business feedback, many individual companies may feel the work required is not worth their effort.

'Small and medium-sized companies need to devote more energy to thinking about how various changes will impact them and to spend time understanding what they want the Government to do.'

The chief financial officer of a firm that did not respond felt the review would result in little change to the status quo as quarterly reporting is part of a trend towards greater disclosure.

Many of the views from the respondents were not new. For example, those in favour said quarterly reporting promoted greater accountability, while opponents said listing rules already provided sufficient disclosure.

The extra expense of more frequent reporting was also discussed. Some companies said the cost of preparing the quarterly reports ranged between $100,000 and $800,000.

The CCDG's recommendations have been passed on to the Ministry of Finance for its consideration.