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Russian Cos. No More Open This Year
Standard & Poor's has found in its latest study that little progress has been made in transparency among Russia's largest companies. Russian companies have risen 2 percent on S&P's transparency index (the percentage of optimal disclosure of information) to reach 54.6 percent this year.
Thirty-two of the 80 companies on S&P's list improved their points (by an average of 1.9 percent age points), while 29 worsened (by an average of 1.4 percentage points). The capitalization of companies with transparency scores over 70 percent rose from a combined$54 billion last year to $169 billion this year. The capitalization of companies with scores of 30 percent or less and those with scores between 30 and 40 percent rose nearly as sharply. Those in the middle changed much less. The capitalization of those with scores of 60 to 70 percent, for instance, fell from $452 billion to $450 billion. The top- and bottom-scoring companies, MTS (70 percent) and Bashneft (20 percent) remained unchanged.
Theoretically, a higher S&P transparency rating gives a competitive advantage. The slow growth of transparency in Russia is not due to caution, although compensation of executives and members of the board of directors is the component of the index where companies scored the lowest.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 16, 2007
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Photo: Îëüãà Êèðñàíîâà
