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Leading companies from Greater China continue to dominate Euromoney’s best-managed companies in Asia survey, according to almost 150 analysts who cover the region. China Telecom wins the overall category for the third year in succession, but it extends its lead considerably this year, doubling its share of the vote from 7.9% to 16.5%.
Listed in Hong Kong and New York, China Telecom scores a clean sweep in the main categories, also ranking first overall for its convincing and coherent strategy, for having the most useful corporate website, and for providing value to shareholders.
China Telecom, which is the country’s largest fixed-line operator by revenues, is looking to expand overseas. Late last year it announced an agreement with AT&T that gave it access to the US firm’s network in North America, and possibly in other regions as well.
But it faces some important battles closer to home. In November, the Chinese government said it was investigating China Telecom and its closest competitor, China Unicom, over concerns that the two operators were demanding prohibitive rates for leasing their networks to competitors, and thereby keeping a quasi-monopoly of the internet market.
China Telecom’s closest competitors in the survey come from very different backgrounds. Leaping into second place overall is one of the totems of China’s natural resources industry – CNOOC. China’s largest offshore oil and gas company, CNOOC did not figure in the top 10 overall last year.
CNOOC’s improvement comes against a backdrop of a number of changes in the boardroom over the past year. In November it was announced that Li Fanrong, an engineer who has been with the company for 30 years, would take over as chief executive from Yang Hua, who remains on the board as a non-executive.
Taiwan’s Chinatrust rounds out the top three. Also a new entrant into the top 10 companies in Asia overall, last year the financial services company appointed a former Standard Chartered executive, Michael DeNoma, to run its flagship Chinatrust Commercial Bank. DeNoma is on the record as stating that he wants to develop the bank’s offering throughout Greater China and also into other countries such as Indonesia and India.
