Board composition per HK-listed company on 2014-01-02

In some countries, governance experts get excited about the proportion of independent non-executive directors on a board, overseeing the management of the company. A majority is deemed ideal. Of course, this presumes that the INEDs are independent of management, which is impossible if the management are also the controlling shareholders of the company and can vote on the election of INEDs in shareholder meetings. So in HK, where almost all companies have a controlling shareholder, INEDs are more form than substance. Listing Rules since 30-Sep-2004 require each listed company in HK to have 3, and from 31-Dec-2012 they should constitute at least 1/3 of the board. We also track the gender and ages of directors.

Here is a table of the number of directors of each company who are claimed to be independent and are subject to election in shareholder meetings (INE), the number of directors who are female, and the proportions they represent of the board, for each company with a current HK primary listing. Click on the column headings to sort the list. Use the snapshot feature to roll back the clock - we have all directors since 1990, including delisted companies up to the delisted date. Current company names are used.

Visit the Webb-site Who's Who home page to find analyses of these data under "HK Listed Boards".

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