PSE sets annual meeting, board election on April 5

As it finalized the rules for board election, the Philippine Stock Exchange has set its much-awaited annual membership meeting on April 5.

The annual PSE elections had been postponed several times due to the failure to come up with a mutually-acceptable set of rules on the nomination and election of PSE directors. The PSE elections had originally been scheduled on March 8.

Jose P. Aquino, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Markets Regulation Department, said: "Whatever issues they had, had already been settled. I’m happy that we can now move on," Aquino said, adding that the PSE board has agreed that all broker and non-broker directors should be elected by the bourse’s stockholders to ensure fairness.

Some members of the board and the nomination and election committee of the PSE earlier could not agree on the selection process for non-broker directors. They could not agree whether the indpendent directors should be elected or not.

Under the Securities Regulation Code, eight non-broker directors are required to sit in the PSE’s 15-member board to represent the interests of the investing public and publicly-listed corporations. The other seven seats are occupied by stockbrokers.

The SRC has defined an independent director as someone who is independent of management and free of any relationship which would interfere with his responsibilities as director.

The SEC drafted earlier a circular governing the election of independent directors. For the PSE, the SEC said independent directors must not be allowed to solicit votes for himself or for others or be subject to election by the stockholders until the shares are listed or the exchange’s outstanding capital stock is no longer majority owned by the brokers.

This year’s annual elections is expected to rekindle the age-old animosity between PSE chairman Vivian Yuchengco and businessman-stockbroker Robert Coyiuto.

Last year’s election was mired by controversy owing partly to the absence of definitive rules on the election of PSE directors.