| Investor Relation Plays Crucial Role To Attract Investor Confidence |
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KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 (Bernama) - Investor Relation (IR) plays an important role in Malaysian companies to attract investor confidence and good governance, says David Berry, Vice-President of Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance.
He said the challenge to Malaysia would be to ensure public companies are well governed and adopted global practices to build investor confidence.
"The message has to be about good governance in Malaysian companies. We cannot be the second best and if you are staying to be the second best, then you simply are not going to attract foreign investors' interest as current situation requires.
"There is no choice and we cannot say we have local benchmarks. Companies' objectives and performances need to be communicated to investors, and that's where IR comes in to get the message out to the investing public," he told reporters after a presentation on "How Can IR Boost A Company's Share Prices and Build Investors' Confidence?' at the 2nd Annual Corporate Governance Summit 2010.
Malaysia has to address fundamental issues of good governance to build investor confidence, said Berry, who is also Managing Director of Columbus Circle Governance Sdn Bhd.
He said it was vital for the board of directors to deliver on what was being done along with excellent management.
On IR standard in Malaysia, Berry said although IR was two years old in Malaysia, there are companies that have practised IR much earlier.
"Official recognition for IR in Malaysia only happened when Bursa Malaysia published its manual in 2007 when it was 40 to 50 years old in other parts of the world.
"But we have some companies that have moved well beyond infancy. Malaysia is not at the bottom of the learning curve, we are probably still less than half way up the learning curve, but with the awareness campaign and the teaching work already being done, the country is progressing," he said.
Berry said there are encouraging signs as Malaysian companies are giving more importance to IR standards but more needs to be done to create awareness among industry players as many have the perception that IR was about boosting share prices.
"I think we need to get more people to understand what the objectives are. There are still people who seem to think it is about managing the share price.
"If you tell the investors the real story, you will build credibility in the company and your share price will follow," he added.
-- BERNAMA
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