Press Statement: SIAS Response on SGX’s New Disclosure Requirements

Date: September 23, 2026

SIAS welcomes the new requirements. We believe they are a positive step towards improving transparency, strengthening investor confidence and ultimately making the Singapore market more attractive to investors.

The key, however, is not simply more disclosure, but better disclosure.

On executive remuneration, shareholders should be able to understand not only how much senior management is being paid, but why they are being paid those amounts and whether the incentives are genuinely aligned with long-term shareholder value.

Pay should be linked to clearly understood performance measures rather than disclosed as numbers without sufficient context.

The requirement for companies to articulate their dividend policies is also welcome. This should not be interpreted as pressure on every company to pay higher dividends. Companies may have legitimate reasons for retaining cash for expansion, acquisitions or other investments.

But shareholders deserve to know the board’s capital-allocation philosophy and why retaining earnings is expected to generate better long-term returns.

SIAS particularly welcomes the stronger emphasis on investor relations. Too often, investor relations is regarded as something mainly for large companies with sizeable institutional followings. In fact, it can be even more important for small and mid-cap companies that suffer from limited analyst coverage, low trading liquidity and poor visibility among investors.

A good company can remain undervalued simply because investors do not understand its business, strategy or prospects. Companies cannot expect the market to discover their value automatically. They have to make the effort to explain their story clearly and engage shareholders consistently.

That said, better investor relations cannot manufacture value where the fundamentals do not support it. Nor should IR become a promotional exercise aimed simply at boosting the share price.

Its purpose should be to ensure that investors have sufficient information to make informed judgments about a company.

The biggest risk is that these new requirements become another box-ticking exercise. A boilerplate dividend policy or a generic statement that a company “regularly engages shareholders” will achieve very little.

The real test will therefore be whether boards embrace the spirit rather than merely the letter of the new rules.

If companies provide meaningful disclosure, explain their capital-allocation decisions and engage investors seriously, we believe these measures can help reduce information gaps and potentially narrow the valuation discount suffered by some listed companies.

Ultimately, you cannot regulate a company into a higher valuation. But you can create the conditions for better price discovery by ensuring that investors are better informed.

For SIAS, that is the real value of these reforms.

 

David Gerald
President/CEO
SIAS