PTT Group considers guidelines to prevent insider
PTT GROUP is considering guidelines for its directors, executives and staff, instructing them to avoid buying and selling shares in the group’s publicly listed companies, as part of its effort to prevent insider trading.
Chief executive officer and president Tevin Vongvanich said yesterday that the current “silent period” that stock-market authorities applied to listed firms’ directors and executives – which covered specific periods of time during which such buying and selling could take place – might not be sufficient, as insider information could be used for trading stocks at other times.
“[Our directors, executives and staff] should not trade shares at all, unless it is essential to do so, in which case they must inform the secretary of their company beforehand. This will make it transparent,” he said.
Each PTT Group subsidiary will discuss the new guidelines and submit them to their board of directors.
The measure is expected to be submitted to the PTT board next month, he added.
PTT is the largest company listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, with a market capitalisation of more than Bt1 trillion.
When combined with PTT’s five listed subsidiaries, the group’s market capitalisation accounts for about 10 per cent of the value of the stock exchange.
Tevin said he had held shares in three group businesses – PTT itself, PTT Exploration and Production, and IRPC – for some time, but had never sold any of these holdings.
The stock-trading rule is one of four guidelines that the Thai energy group is considering.
The others are a no-gift policy; an “Integrity Pact”, which PTT would get its large projects to participate in; and a “Collective Action Coalition”, where it would encourage its subsidiaries, trading partners and suppliers to take part.
IRPC president Sukrit Surabotsopon said the company’s parent had already applied an information-technology tool – known as the continuous control monitoring and auditing system (CCMS) – to detect and monitor irregular transactions or exceptions in its procurement process from “procurement to payment”, and in its sales process from “order to cash”.
The CCMS system, which is expected to be deployed at PTT’s subsidiaries within the next two years, will help close off the opportunity to conduct fraudulent activity, since it will monitor every single transaction, whereas the traditional auditing process is random and manual, he explained.
“There are three motivations behind corruption: reward, greed and opportunity. The system will close off the opportunity to conduct fraud,” he added.
Thai Oil CEO and president Atikom Terbsiri, meanwhile, said 70 per cent of his company’s suppliers had signed up to a code of conduct that it formally issued this year, up from 50 per cent last year when the code was introduced.
PTT executives were speaking at the group’s annual “CG Day”, held this year under the theme “See Through the Future”.
The objective of the event is to promote transparency and combat fraud and corruption, as part of the group’s goal of achieving sustainable growth.
