Ensuring accountability by securing management transparency
Information Disclosure Policy
Chugai endeavors to disclose and explain its corporate activities, including management philosophies and business strategies, in an easy to understand, appropriate, timely and fair manner to its shareholders and investors. The Corporate Communications Department is in charge of disclosing corporate information, and the IR Committee, headed by the executive officer in charge of investor relations, formulates the Company's information disclosure policies and oversees the disclosure of relevant information.
Enhancing Investor Understanding
Information disclosure on website
Chugai uses its website to ensure prompt and fair disclosure of information to its shareholders and investors.
Information provided online includes news releases, financial statements, new product development status, briefing materials, annual reports and IR calendars. In particular, with the convenience of individual investors in mind, the Company also notifies investors by e-mail when the IR website has been updated with news releases and other information. Briefing materials and other IR information are released simultaneously in Japanese and English via the Company website and e-mail to ensure fair information disclosure to investors both in and outside Japan.
Briefings on Business Performance
Chugai holds briefings and conference calls for analysts and investors when it announces results for each quarter to directly explain the Company's performance. In 2010, Chugai held a briefing on Actemra® in September and a management briefing by the CEOs of Roche and Chugai in October. Chugai posts webcasts of such meetings on the Company website as part of its efforts to provide ample information to stakeholders.
Moreover, Chugai's top executives are committed to communicating directly with overseas investors and regularly travel outside of Japan for this purpose. In 2010, as usual, they visited Europe, the United States and Asia. In addition to participating in securities companies' conferences for enhancing IR activities, Chugai holds information meetings for individual investors at branches of securities companies in various regions of Japan to provide them with fuller information.
General Meeting of Shareholders and Shareholders' Conference
On March 25, 2010, the Company's 99th annual general meeting of shareholders was held at the Royal Park Hotel in Tokyo, attended by a record 762 shareholders — most of them individual investors. After an audio-visual presentation of the business report, all items on the agenda, namely, the disposition of surplus and the election of directors, were discussed and approved by a majority vote.
At the shareholders' conference held following the post-meeting break, President Nagayama gave a presentation on the circumstances surrounding the pharmaceutical industry and Chugai's growth strategy, in which shareholders showed keen interest.
IR top page
Annual report
Streamed video presentation
- Timing and Speed Are Critical in Conveying IR Information
Chugai has provided video and audio files of information meetings on financial results, management presentations and R&D information meetings on its website in both Japanese and English since 2006. Uploaded within one business day of the meetings, they are highly appreciated by individual and other investors in Japan and overseas investors who did not attend the meetings. Conducting an active IR program does not automatically raise the Company's stock price. The benefits may be hard to see, but we believe that providing IR information as quickly and fairly as possible leads to higher stakeholder satisfaction.
Yuusuke Tokita
Corporate Communications Dept.
Basic Policy on Profit Distribution
With regard to profit distribution, Chugai aims to provide stable returns to shareholders. Taking account of short-term fluctuations in earnings due to the effect of influenza epidemics and the like, medium-to-long-term strategic investment funding needs and earnings prospects, the Company aims to maintain a dividend payout ratio of around 40 percent on average.
Recognition from Socially Responsible Investment Institution
Chugai is listed on the FTSE4Good Index Series, which includes companies that meet globally recognized standards in the area of socially responsible investment (SRI). The FTSE4Good Index Series is maintained by the FTSE Group in the UK, which offers a variety of investment indices. This index series tracks the stocks of about 2,400 listed companies in 23 countries worldwide.
