Institutional investors agree to join forces in battling corruption by improving their transparency through a detailed disclosure of their annual general meeting's resolutions, says Voravan Tarapoom, chairman of Association of Asset Management Companies (AIMC).
"This will help improve the corporate governance of business operators as normally big investors would disclose only the resolutions of the meeting but not the reasons behind them. Once they agree to let public know why they voted the way they did, the public will be able to make an informed decision on their investment and listing companies will know the factors influencing the decisions of these institutional investors," said Mrs Voravan.
She said all asset management companies who are AIMC members are willing to disclose the reasons openly. Information disclosure include the key reasons behind the institutional investors' investment decisions as well as their concerns, which are mostly about the accounting standards of listing companies.
"These information will help listing companies know their weaknesses and strengths so they know the areas that need improvement for them to get better corporate governance rating," said Mrs Voravan. She added that institutions also demand that listing companies address the concerns of all types of investors to ensure fairness and transparency.
Improvement in transparency will also boost the image of Thailand's capital market as well as the efficiency of capital market's regulator.
Mrs Voravan said that AIMC has started collecting the disclosure information in the form of statistics over the past five years but it has never been disclosed publicly.
"The strong collaboration of the AIMC members is impressive as it is the first time that these companies agree to disclose even the names of the companies," said Mrs Voravan.
It would help Thailand's ranking on CG Watch, a survey on corporate governance by the Asian Corporate Governance Association and CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.
Apart from the AIMC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Government Pension Fund, Social Securities Office, life assurance companies and insurance companies are also willing to join the initiative in principle, she said. AIMC will play a pioneer role and will gather information from non-member institutional investors.
The 2013 information will be available on the AIMC website soon.