The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), along with its participating jurisdictions, have published Multilateral Staff Notice, 58-311, Report on Fifth Staff Review of Disclosure Regarding Women on Boards and in Executive Officer Positions (the Report).
In summary, the Report noted these key trends:
• 73% of issuers had at least one woman on their boards, up 7% from the previous year;
• Although 17% of board seats were held by women, the report noted this number tended to increase with the size of the issuer and varied by industry. This latter number was also up by 2% from the previous year;
• 33% of all issuers’ vacated board seats were occupied by women, up from 29% in the previous year;
• Of all issuers, 5% had board chairs who were women, with 4% in the CEO’s position and 15% in the CFO’s role. 64% of issuers had at least one woman in an executive officer position. These numbers tended to remain largely unchanged over the previous year; and,
• 50% of issuers had adopted policies relating to the representation of women on their boards, while 22% had adopted targets for the representation of women on their boards, and 3% had adopted targets for women in executive roles.
The Report also looked at director term limits and board renewal. It found that 21% of all issuers had some form of director term limits, while 36% of issuers had some other form board renewal, but 39% had no such plans in place. The percentage of issuers with term limits in place remained unchanged from the previous year.
The Report summarizes results from a review of the disclosure of 641 issuers with year-ends between December 31, 2018, and March 31, 2019. The review, conducted by the participating jurisdictions, focuses on disclosure requirements regarding the representation of women on boards and in executive officer positions, as set out in National Instrument 58-101 Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices.
Multilateral Staff Notice, 58-311, Report on Fifth Staff Review of Disclosure Regarding Women on Boards and in Executive Officer Positions is available for download from the websites of the participating jurisdictions.
For more information, please call Barbara Hendrickson at BAX Securities Law (416) 601-1004.
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