In the process of implementing the "Notice of Strengthening the Publicity of ‘Active Rewards to Investors’" issued by the Investor Protection Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has made all-round efforts in guiding listed companies to reward investors by attaching importance to the problems concerned by investors, improving the publicity of active rewards to investors from multiple perspectives, and organized a series of publicity campaigns since the second half of this year. Cash dividend distribution is an important form for listed companies to reward investors. It is learnt that the SSE has worked out the "Guidance for Cash Dividend Distribution of SSE-listed Companies (Draft Version)" (the Guidance for Dividend Distribution for short) to solicit opinions from the public, in light of ambiguous expectations of dividend distribution, unsatisfactory dividend payout ratios, and other problems in some companies. The Guidance for Dividend Distribution, by considering the characteristics of China’s capital market and drawing on the merits of overseas mature markets, has reinforced listed companies’ obligation of disclosing relevant issues of cash dividend distribution, as well as further cemented the maneuverability of the policy of cash dividend distribution, the relevant decision making, and the disclosure of relevant information, with an aim of guiding, encouraging, and urging listed companies to build a sustainable and expectable mechanism of rewarding shareholders. Since this June, the SSE has successively sponsored the campaign themed with "New Impetuses from Blue Chips: Small and Medium-sized Investors Walking into Listed Companies". Small and medium-sized investors were organized to visit Shanghai International Port (Group) Co., Ltd., SAIC Motor Corporation Limited, Xi’an Shaangu Power Co., Ltd., China South Publishing & Media Group, NARI Technology Development Co., Ltd., and other listed companies, which were listed into the SSE 180 index. All this facilitated the face-to-face talks between investors and executives. In order to enhance the publicity result, the SSE has published an array of articles including those entitled "Perfecting Dividend Distribution Systems of Listed Companies and Elevating Long-term Investment Value of the Market" and "An Introduction to Listed Companies’ Experience in Dividend Distribution in Mature Markets" in newspapers, on TV channels, and its official website. These articles aimed to assist investors in understanding the concepts including dividend payout ratio and analyzing the dividend distribution of the SSE-listed listed companies, guide them to form rational viewpoints on the status quo and improvements of listed companies’ rewards to investors, and urge listed companies to foster the sense of responsibility for serving and rewarding investors. Besides, the SSE has made TV programs about interviews to executives including board chairmen and secretaries to directorates by selecting a batch of typical blue-chip listed companies and cooperating with TV stations, in an effort to facilitate investors’ understanding listed companies. In these interviews, listed companies’ executives introduced corporate operation, industrial prospects, investor relation management, dividend distribution policies, and others. The interviews provided by the SSE have not only helped investors know more about listed companies and elevate their confidence to the market and listed companies, but also provided platforms for listed companies to initiatively show the operational achievements and fulfillment of social responsibilities. Apart from intensifying the publicity, the SSE has focused on its interaction with investors. Making full use of "SSE Release" (its official microblog), the SSE has held the "Microblog-based Interview" with the theme of "‘Guidance for Dividend Distribution’ and Market Integrity Construction", in which relevant officials, experts, heads of relevant departments, and representatives of listed companies were invited to compare notes with investors on the analysis of the Guidance for Dividend Distribution, the tax on dividends, the measures to be taken for encouraging listed companies’ dividend distribution. The SSE has also organized trainings of listed companies’ executives, so as to intensify listed companies’ awareness of rewarding investors. In the follow-up trainings for secretaries to directorates and the qualification trainings of independent directors of listed companies, the SSE arranged the courses related to the reinforcement of listed companies’ investor relation management, the upgrading of services for small and medium-sized investors, as well as the improvement of the quality of listed companies’ information disclosure and the level of cash dividend distribution, etc., in a bid to intensify the executives’ awareness of rewarding, service, and social responsibility, and assist listed companies in building the corporate culture of attaching importance to rewarding investors. Moreover, the SSE has formulated and issued the "Notice of Sorting Out and Releasing Regulatory Documents on Information Disclosure of Listed Companies". A fraction of operational and explanatory business guides were only open to listed companies previously, while the SSE made all the regulatory documents on information disclosure public to help market participants abide by regulatory rules. An SSE official said that on the basis of traditional publicity channels, the SSE rationalized relevant working mechanisms. On one hand, the SSE, by taking advantage of data resources, wrote research reports on such topics as dividend distribution of listed companies, corporate governance, and investor relation management to give professional support for publicity. On the other hand, the SSE positively developed an interactive platform for investor relations of listed companies with the aid of its website, so as to provide an express online channel for "Direct Talks" between investors and listed companies as well as further strengthen the mechanism for supervision of the markets and regulatory authorities on listed companies’ services for investors. The official finally said that the SSE would continuously carry out relevant work plans for some time to come, in a bid to cultivate the equity culture themed with "Initiatively Rewarding Investors" and foster the concept of long-term investment and value investing by enhancing publicity with wider media coverage, innovating on the ways of self-regulation and services for investors, and reinforcing the supervision on and guidance for listed companies. |
FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index:
Shanghai Stock Exchange Guides Listed Companies' Rewards To Investors
Date 06/11/2012