Hungary: Taking shareholder value on board

The concept of shareholder value is transforming the way Hungarian companies communicate with investors ­ at least it is for the 50 or so companies traded on the Budapest Stock Exchange. By Henry Copeland

Spencer Jakab picks up a copy of the 1993 annual report for Zalakeramia, a Hungarian building tile manufacturer. He thumbs through its drab pages and winces.

Jakab, an equity analyst at CS First Boston Budapest, raises his eye-brows when he passes a page which features the pictures of the company’s board of directors. Filled with mug shots of alternately glum or grinning men and women, this could be the faculty page from a junior high school yearbook.

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