ASX looks to women in hunt for better returns

Updated October 29 2014 - 11:13am, first published 10:51am
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley
Companies with more women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study across 40 countries. Photo: Louise Kennerley

Women in top roles means better returns for investors, according to a recent Credit Suisse study. ASX, Australia's exchange operator, has been listening.

ASX will increase the ratio of females in senior-management roles to 40 per cent from 25 per cent within two years. That compares with an average of 15 per cent in North America and Europe and just 11.5 per cent in Asia, Credit Suisse research shows.

Companies with more participation from women in top management positions or on their board provide higher investor returns, according to a Credit Suisse study covering major industries across 40 countries. ASX, the second-largest listed exchange operator within the Asia-Pacific region, also plans to raise the number of women on its nine-member board from two to three by 2016, according to its Chairman Rick Holliday Smith.

"It's a positive step," said Pru Bennett, head of corporate governance in the Asia-Pacific region at BlackRock. "It's shifting in the right direction. The business case for diversity is as strong, if not stronger, at senior executive ranks as it is at the board level." BlackRock is the ASX's fifth-largest shareholder and the world's biggest money manager.

ASX has set targets for female representation on the board and the first three levels of management below the managing director and chief executive officer by the end of June 2016, according to its annual report. The ASX Corporate Governance Council has asked public companies to have numeric targets for the senior management and boards positions.

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