In order to help listed companies enhance the quality of dialogue with investors, show their value in the capital market and realize their vision of sustainable operation, the Taiwan Stock Exchange held an investor relations forum on January 13, 2021.

Pony Huang, TWSE Senior Vice President of the Corporate Governance Department said that, with the trend of responsible investment and the development of Stewardship Code in various countries, in order to fulfill their responsibilities, institutional investors at home and abroad have taken the initiative to communicate with listed companies to strengthen their sustainable operation capability and reduce ESG related risks, to create maximum long-term value for both sides. Concurrently, listed companies are also facing more challenges with the increase of investor participation. The TWSE specially held this investor relations forum in order for listed companies to enhance the effectiveness of communication with investor relations.

Celine Feng, Vice President of Alliance Advisors, spoked on the voting policies and trends of institutional investors, and explained that listed companies should properly identify investors, understand different types of institutional investors, encourage listed companies to establish a good investor communication channel, and regularly give feedback to institutional investors on the issues of their concern, so as to ensure a sound shareholder relationship, and enable investors to support the company at critical moments. Over-ignoring the needs of institutional investors will cause institutional investors to vote against the proposals or abstain from voting at the shareholders' meeting, or even liquidate their shareholding and blacklist the company.

Katrina Chen, Manager of Taiwan Cement Corporation, pointed out that the company has transformed from a traditional cement company to a green environmental engineering company which regards ESG as the "golden ratio." Through active communication with ESG rating agencies, the company can understand the items that should be strengthened in its sustainable development. An ESG website and  ESG overview report were specifically established to enhance the integrity of information disclosure. Taiwan Cement also actively improves the environment and corporate governance for the risk management of sustainable operation, and introduces ESG into the core of the enterprise to link the KPI for management with the sustainable performance, and establishes the ESG concept for whole company through training.

Karen Chen, Executive Director of MSCI, explained MSCI's ESG rating methodology to enable listed companies to understand the ESG issues to which different industries need to pay attention. She also pointed out that, according to the latest information, 19% of MSCI Taiwan Index companies' ESG ratings have been upgraded from the previous year, and only 7% have been downgraded. Through years of big data observation, MSCI has gradually won the increased attention of global enterprises to the MSCI ESG rating. MSCI has also set up an enterprise communication platform to provide communication channels for listed companies.

Anne Pang, Managing Director of Think Alliance Group, shared that as the scale of responsible investment is growing rapidly both in the world and in Asia, if a listed company makes good use of the investor relationship function to explain the company's ESG performance, it may take the opportunity to further enhance its value. She also pointed out that both investor relations and corporate governance share the same goal, and institutional investors’ active exercise of shareholder activism makes it necessary for listed companies to strengthen corporate governance to face the challenges of institutional investors.

A total of 150 speakers, chief financial officers and investor relations representatives of listed companies participated in this forum. The audience was keenly interactive and offered accolades on the Forum’s success. If you missed the forum, you may watch the video on the WebPro audiovisual communication network of the Taiwan Stock Exchange (https://webpro.twse.com.tw/webportal/vod/115/?categoryId=150). For relevant information of the forum, please refer to the publicity activities webpage of the website of the Corporate Governance Center (https://cgc.twse.com.tw/promoteEvent/promoteEventArticleCh/673).