Over the past year, an increasing number of companies have set up nomination and compensation committees. In order to improve transparency and objectivity and considering the continuity of management, establishing these committees is a key issue in enhancing corporate governance. Due to the request of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, many companies have moved to set up advisory committees lately. On the other hand, only a limited number of companies have moved to the organization structure of a company with 3 statutory committees for the same period.
Based on the data of approximately 1,800 companies, we will show how far companies have progressed in setting up the committees for the past 2 years since March 2018. As shown the chart below, compared to March 2018 and April 2020, the number of companies with statutory nominating committee and compensation committee increased modestly from 65 companies/all 1,796 companies to 68 companies/all 1,753 companies in total. It obviously shows how difficult the companies consider moving to the structure with 3 statutory committees. On the other hand, as for the optional (advisory) committees, an increasing number of companies have set up the nomination committee and compensation committee. The number of companies with optional (advisory) nomination committee increased from 550 companies /1,731 companies (31.8% of all companies excluding the companies with structure having 3 statutory committees) as of March 2018 to 949 companies/1,685 (56.3% of all companies excluding the companies with structure having 3 statutory committees as of April 2020. Similarly, the number of companies with optional (advisory) compensation committee increased from 609 companies/1,731 companies (35.2% of all companies excluding the companies with structure having 3 statutory committees) as of March 2018 to 992 companies/1,685 companies (58.9% of all companies excluding the companies with structure having 3 statutory committees) as of April 2020.
