2013 review of the implementation status of corporate governance disclosures: Case of Egypt

Abstract

This report is a case study of corporate governance disclosure in Egypt. The study employs the benchmark of good practices in corporate governance disclosure developed by the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR). This benchmark consists of fifty two disclosure items covering five subject areas and is based on a sample of the top 29 listed companies in Egypt. This study is complimentary to an earlier study conducted in 2007: 2007 Review of the implementation status of corporate governance disclosures: case study Egypt. This report compares the results of the current study to the 2007 study. This study finds the average disclosure level is less than half of the items in the ISAR benchmark. While nine items in the ISAR benchmark were disclosed by more than two-thirds of the companies in the study, forty items were disclosed by less than half. The absolute number of disclosure items found for each company ranged from 5 to 43, indicating a high level of variability between ‘best practice’ companies and companies with minimal disclosure practices. The study concludes that while the sample has relatively high rates of disclosure for few items, and the average disclosures in 2010 almost doubled the 2005 average disclosures in Egypt for several categories, they are still low levels compared to the average emerging markets levels. Policy options discussed include penalizing companies for undisclosed items, and providing education and training for executives and directors to enhance the awareness of the rapidly evolving regulatory environment, as well as the underlying importance of corporate governance disclosure

Boards of Directors’ Characteristics and Firm Value: A Comparative Study between Egypt and USA

“…Egyptian firm performance have been investigated by a limited number of studies. Some of those are by [9] [16] and [17]. While an excessive deal of studies has been directed on corporate governance in the developed economies [2] [3] there is relatively little focus on the developing countries [4] [5] and even less focus on countries in the Middle East [18].…”

“…Even so, significant measures were used to guarantee that this research's objectives were met and that its research question was answered. Since 2012 to 2017 chosen as a time period of the study to reveal the impact of the latest developments in corporate governance in Egypt on firm value after the EIOD revision of the Corporate Governance Code for listed companies in March 2011, in pursuit of keep up to date with the best practices at the international and regional levels, in terms of the roles of boards of directors [17], and because of all companies listed in the EGX committed to disclose all the information related to their board of directors in an annual board of directors report since 2014 (EGX report, 2014), as a result the researcher found a problem of data availability before 2014. Consequently, the sample of the study is limited to listed firms in the EGX for a certain assumption as mentioned before like the availability of a comprehensive and relevant corporate governance data, which means that the sample of the study was not chosen randomly.…”

“…For Egypt, this research covers the Egyptian firms listed in the EGX for the period (2012-2017). This time period was designated for the reasons that: In March 2011, in quest of keep up to date with the best practices at the international and regional levels, in terms of the roles of Boards of directors, the EIOD revised the Corporate Governance Code for listed companies, in line with the governance Open Access Library Journal guidelines at the time[17]. Consequently, this research will reveal the impact of the latest developments in corporate governance in Egypt on firm value from 2012 onwards.…”

Board characteristics and asymmetric cost behavior: evidence from Egypt

“…Egypt has witnessed essential CG reforms during the last two decades, which have affected significantly the number of listed companies on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX). Shehata & Dahawy (2013) state that applying the governance rules contributes to decreasing the number of companies included in the stock market from 1148 companies at the beginning of 2002 to 333 by mid-2009, to 240 in April 2012.…”

Law–Finance–Growth Nexus in the Context of Africa

“…173 Furthermore, corporate transparency remains problematic. 174 As reported by the World Bank, both financial and non-financial information of listed companies is not easily accessible by investors. 175 However, the Egyptian market still has the strength of a high institutional investor participation rate (close to 30 per cent) over illiquid markets such as Morocco.…”