Corporate Governance

Practical Guide to Corporate Governance

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An initiative of 14 leading Latin American companies, Practical Guide to Corporate
Governance: Experiences from the Latin America Companies Circle distills the lessons
learned from their experiences in improving their own governance. The book is intended
as a roadmap to guide other Latin American companies interested in improving their corporate
governance.
Although the guide has been in the works for several years, the timing of its publication
coincides with a global financial crisis that has catapulted corporate governance to a top spot
on the global policy agenda. With gaps in governance—from inadequate risk management to
distorted incentives structures—factoring in as contributing to the crisis, good corporate governance
practices will be an important part of the response needed for Latin American economies,
as well for others around the world.
Beyond the immediacy of the crisis, Latin America possesses a unique set of corporate
governance and market characteristics: a predominance of conglomerates and a highly-concentrated,
frequently family-based ownership structure. In addition, domestic capital markets are
still in the early stages of development. All of this poses special challenges to attracting investment
and elevates the importance of governance practices. Among the challenges: ensuring
that minority shareholders are confident enough to invest in listed companies by enhancing the
protection of shareholders’ rights and interests.
Within this context, there has been a remarkable growth in awareness and activity surrounding
corporate governance during the last decade, as recognized by the Latin American
Roundtable on Corporate Governance. This is an ongoing initiative of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development and the International Finance Corporation/World Bank
Group that has brought together policy-makers, regulators, stock exchanges, investors, companies
and other stakeholders on an annual basis to promote improved policies and practices
specific to the Latin American context. The Roundtable’s White Paper on Corporate Governance
in Latin America, issued in 2003, was a first attempt to outline public policy priorities and good
practices specific to the region. Recognizing that much remains to be done, the Roundtable followed
this with the establishment of the Companies Circle in 2005 to promote corporate governance
implementation at the company level.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Practical Guide to Corporate Governance

Call Number

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Publisher

USA : International inance Corporation., 2009

Collation

1-276

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

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Classification

NONE

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

1st Edition

Subject(s)

Governance

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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Other version/related

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