Infosys named best Indian company in Corporate Governance

Technology behemoth Infosys Technologies has been named as the best company in India in terms of Corporate Governance in The Asset Magazine’s annual Corporate Governance Index 2008. The results have been released and are to be published in the November 2008 issue of The Asset.

Dwelling on the theme that Corporate Governance is both an art and a science., The Asset, for the past ten years, has been emphasising on the ‘art’ part by canvassing the opinion of institutional investors, sellside analysts and The Asset’s board of editors. This year, The Asset has drilled down further into understanding corporate governance practices in companies in the region by comparing these with international best standards.

Infosys has said that its basis for corporate governance standards is the Combined Code Principles of Good Governance and Code of Best Practice derived by the committee on its final report and from the Cadbury and Greenbury Reports. Besies, the White Paper on Corporate Governance in Asia produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has also been a base for the initiatives.

Companies were invited to present their annual results in complying with best practices. In addition, participating companies were asked to submit their compliance to best practices in such areas such as composition of board of directors, which was 20 per cent weighted; audit committee (15 per cent); remuneration committee (15 per cent), risk management committee (15 per cent), nomination committee (15 per cent), corporate social responsibility (10 per cent), investor relations (5 per cent) and digital communication (5 per cent). The scores are then weighted and combined with the score achieved in the presentation part of the process with an 85 per cent /15 per cent weighting between compliance and voting by the board of editors.

The Asset Magazine is a financial business magazine written for users and providers of financial services in Asia.