Internationalized Investment Reporting

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Jason Skinner
Senior Consultant, WritePath Pte. Ltd.
Oct. 30-31, 2018
Internationalized Investment Reporting:
Topics and Trends

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About Me . . .
• As an MBA grad of the McCombs School of
Business (UT Austin), I'm a communications
consultant based in Taiwan dedicated to fostering
higher professional success.
• Past companies: KGI Securities, (凱基證券),
Primasia Securities (犇亞證券股). Positions:
Analyst, editor, research marketing manager.
• Most recently: WritePath Pte. Ltd. (VP of Sales &
BD, Senior Consultant), TopAdmit Holdings Pte.
Ltd. (GM and MBA Admissions Consultant).
• In addition, I'm fluent in Mandarin Chinese and
live most of the time in Taipei, Taiwan. I'm also a
frequent traveler in China, Hong Kong, Japan,
Vietnam, Singapore, etc.

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About WritePath and IR/CSR/ESG Reports . . .
• I began working with WritePath in 2014 as editor,
translator, and BD Manager, and helped Charles and the
team identify investment-related internationalized
reporting as an important new development area.
• We began by approaching several prominent companies
at that time to introduce our unique way of producing
high quality standardized translations, and we found a
great reception and a high level of Interest in this topic.
• Our initial work included reports for prominent clients
such as Foxconn, SPIL, and Mediatek, and we had in-depth
conversations not only on the content of their reports but
the ideas behind them.
• We also began researching and publishing information
that we hoped would be helpful to the corporate
community. In 2015, this culminated in our publication of
a white paper on the topic of CSR reporting.

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Internationalized Reporting:
Why Your Company Should Care

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• Taiwan Regulator Action
• Internal Best Practices
• Global and Regional
Competitiveness
• Marketing Value
• Investment Performance

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What’s Involved
• Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, J-SOX, and MiFID II
• Corporate Social Responsibility/Sustainability Report (CSR)
• Investment deck, product roadmap, plans and projections, etc.

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What’s Involved
• GDR and ADR related requirements
• FSA mandated, English-language versions of any circulars (documents
issued to holders of listed securities, including notices of meetings);
• SEC Form 20-F (annual report) disclosures, including risk factors,
management’s discussion and analysis of operating and financial
results, compensation, financial statements, and so on;
• SEC Form 6-K (interim material) disclosures between annual reports

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Taiwan Regulator Attitudes
• Committed to promoting corporate governance practices for local
companies, to encourage Taiwanese institutional investors to
participate in responsible investing.

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Taiwan Regulator Timeline
2013: FSC creates corp. governance roadmap to promote
shareholder activism.
2016: TWSE establishes Taiwan stewardship principles aimed at
strengthening the role of institutional investors and shaping good
stewardship practice.
2018: FSC revises Company Act and corporate governance
guidelines to emphasize governance and CSR culture,
transparency, board functions, and regulatory enforcement.

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• Authorities are keen to solicit institutional funds from abroad, and
are keeping a sharp eye on international ESG metrics.
• This includes an upcoming evaluation by the Asia/Pacific Group
on Money Laundering in November.
• FSC Chairman Wellington Koo is determined to use both carrots
and sticks to effect more effective corporate governance.

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A Growing Trend
for Taiwan Companies
• The number of local companies with CSR reporting has grown
from 170 in 2014 to about 350 currently.
• The share of listed companies with English annual general
meeting notices has increased from 10% to about 50% in the
same period.
• The proportion of English meeting handbooks at the AGM has
increased from 10% to about 30% over 2014-2018.

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Internal Best Practices
• Society for Corporate Governance: ESG risks can impact the
worth of intangible assets making up 80%+ of company value.
• Including brand names, reputation, top managers, technological
know how and a loyal, well-trained and engaged workforce.
• Important as Taiwan moves up the value chain.

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Internal Best Practices
• “Companies are demonstrating a better understanding of how
corporate governance and sustainability can have a material
impact on long-term corporate performance. Criteria such as
environmental impact or reputational risk, once viewed as
secondary concerns for a subset of investors, are now front and
center in public company outreach and disclosure.”
(Kern McPherson, Senior Director of North American Research, Glass, Lewis & Co.)

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Investment Performance
Sources: Bloomberg, The Economist Source: Bloomberg

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Global
Competitiveness
• The South Korean government has
recognized these issues and are
pushing the chaebols to change.
E.g., the National Pension Service is
preparing to adopt new stewardship
codes.
• Proposed protections for minority
shareholders could assist not only
individual companies like Samsung
but give the market an overall

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Global
Competitiveness
• Hong Kong: Strengthened a push for
compliance with its 2005 Corporate
Governance Code.
• Listed big-cap mainland Chinese
firms becoming more aware of the
importance of strict corporate
governance and strengthening their
internal regulations.

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Institutional Shareholder Questions
Source: www.chinatimes.com
2015 2018

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• With institutional investors playing an increasing
role in Taiwan, there’s clear influence from the
2008 financial crisis in corporate governance
attitudes.
• Less obvious: the impact of the shift from active
to passive funds, which often have ESG
mandates.
• The largest passive investors globally, including
Blackrock and the Government Pension Fund of
Japan, have embraced ESG in both marketing
and risk management practices.Source: The Economist

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• According to the Society for Corporate Governance, ESG
investing has expanded to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds,
and private equity. No longer limited to a small set of investors.
• TWSE Corporate Governance 100 Index was launched in 2015.
• In 2017, a TWSE subsidiary joined FTSE Russell to jointly
compile the FTSE4Good TIP Taiwan ESG Index.
• This tracks TWSE-listed firms meeting global ESG inclusion standards.

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FTSE4Good TIP Taiwan ESG Index
Source: FTSE Russell Factsheet; BCSD Taiwan

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Source: The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers. Baruch Lev, Feng Gu. 2016

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The Importance of a Trusted Language Partner
• In response to the internal motivations and external drivers to
internationalize investment-related reporting, consistent and high-
quality English translation and high-level professional editing has
never been more important for Taiwan firms.
• Furthermore, given the limited resources allocated to IR among
many companies, finding a trusted, experienced language
partner is a logical solution for this need.

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What to Look For in a Language Partner
• A deep bench of well-trained, experienced translators who have
training specifically in investor relations documents.
• Robust glossaries and AI/machine translation capabilities that
ensure consistent and correct terminology for an industry and a
unique business.
• A transparent and well-planned project management system to
plan and track the progress of each IR document at every stage.

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Thank you for your attention.

Internationalized Investment Reporting

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