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New Delhi , Sept. 22

BELIEVE it or not, Indian companies lead the pack with four positions in the `Top 10' in Asiamoney's corporate governance poll on Asian companies in the energy sector.

For the first time, Reliance Industries has joined the club of a select few Asian companies and is the only Indian private sector enterprise to find a place in the `Top 5' in the energy sector category.

Even as Chinese energy companies have claimed the first two positions in the recently conducted corporate governance poll published in the latest issue of Asiamoney magazine, ranked third is the Indian public sector oil major, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL).

While Reliance is placed fourth, bringing up the rear is another public sector oil giant, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), which has been ranked eighth, followed by Castrol India Ltd in the tenth position.

Among the top 10 in the corporate governance poll of companies in the field of energy, India thus leads with four rankings followed by three companies from China, two from Thailand and one from South Korea.

While the poll reveals the quality of corporate governance practices of some of Asia's foremost companies, Asiamoney introduces the issue saying "Corporate governance is the popular business mantra. But not all corporates practice what they preach, reveals our poll."

Among the four Indian energy sector companies, BPCL is ranked No.1 with a score of 78, closely followed by Reliance in second place with a score of 72 while HPCL is third in the Indian list with 49 points while Castrol India is in the fourth position with 43 points.

No other Indian company, except one in the materials sector, have figured in the remaining industry sectors, namely, banks, capital goods, diversified financials, real estate, semiconductors and semiconductor equipment, technology hardware and equipment, telecommunication services, and utilities.

The poll, now in its second year, also received responses from research analysts of leading brokerage firms, in addition to the self-assessment responses received from corporates.

The self-assessment component, Asiamoney noted, revealed that the companies were not entirely convinced of their own perfection. Only 46 per cent gave themselves full marks for their own level of corporate governance. Investors and analysts were of the opinion that standards are improving across the region as regulations become stricter and investors become more demanding.

Among the various countries, the poll revealed that Taiwan had the maximum number of entries in the top 12 categories with 24 companies, closely followed by South Korea and Hong Kong with 23 and 22 companies, respectively. There were five companies from India - the fifth being in the materials sector — of which four in the energy sector featured among the top 10.

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