In the wake of the Enron debacle and the exit of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) from several countries in the region citing reasons including lack of transparency, there have been calls for higher standards of corporate disclosure and governance to protect shareholders.

As one of the largest Singapore-listed property companies, and a component stock on the Morgan Stanley Capital Index Singapore Free and the Straits Times Index (STI), Keppel Land is mindful of its responsibilities to its shareholders, which include Singapore and overseas investors.

As part of the STI, Keppel Land also became a component stock of the STI tracker fund or exchangetraded fund called streetTracks which started trading on the Singapore Exchange in April 2002.

Apart from holding interim and full year results briefings, top management adopts an open door policy and meets up with analysts and fund managers regularly. In addition, management has presented updates on the Company’s strategy at investor conferences and meetings overseas. In 2001, management met with fund managers and shareholders in the Netherlands and Hong Kong.

Director, Corporate Services, Choo Chin Teck, receives the Grand Award from Senior Minister of State Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Recognition for Efforts

The Company’s efforts at corporate disclosure have been recognised by several reputable organisations. In January 2002, Keppel Land took the Grand Award for the second year in running at the Annual Report Award competition which judges the standards of voluntary disclosure, among other criteria. The Grand Award is given to a company whose annual report wins the best award for the third consecutive year.

This is the eighth time that the Company has won the Grand Award in the 28 years that the competition has been held. The competition, which aims to raise standards of timely and high standards of disclosure and presentation, is organised by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore, the Singapore Institute of Management, the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd, the Singapore Institute of Directors and The Business Times.

Recognition also came from the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS), the organisation safeguarding minority shareholders’ interests. SIAS awarded the Company the runner-up prize in the properties’ category for Most Transparent Company Award for two years in running in 2001 and 2000.

Keppel Land has also received a substantial upgrade in its corporate governance score from European broking house CLSA which regularly conducts corporate governance rating exercises on listed companies. As at February 2002, its score was to 72.8%, which is among the best scores for listed property companies in Singapore.

It has also made it to the top 10 league in the Business Times Corporate Transparency Index, which measures the level of transparency of companies during their announcements of financial results.