SIME

This week began mundanely, per usual in the office. I took LRT into work without the excitement of uncertainty. I sat down at my desk and began to work in the dead silence of OWW’s office, sort of longing for the stimulation of the Foundations in CSR training. I whizzed through the remaining ratings that I had from the week prior. I realized that my next company to rate was Sime Darby, one of Malaysia’s giant Government-Linked Corporations (GLCs) and the largest palm plantation company in the country. In general, GLCs play an interesting role in the story of successful Asian economic development. According to the Washington Consensus and Neoliberal Economic thought, the way poor countries would develop most successfully is through market liberalization. In reality, Washington does not always follow its own consensus; and Malaysia, Vietnam, and China liberalized only select parts of their economies and continue to develop using their own gradual liberalization model. In Malaysia, full privatization was/is not the top priority.

Sime Darby is not particularly popular amongst most Malaysians. Historically, they have have been accused of perpetuating slavery until the 1970s and institutionalized corruption. Presently, their name is still tainted by simple, but repeated corruption allegations. Sean warned me, “Sime Darby has many allegations. Take your time with this rating. Be very careful.” If that didn’t make me nervous enough, the size of the annual report was almost double that of its multibillion-ringgit counterparts. Seriously, their revenue is in the US$, 11 figure range!

It’s funny the way things work sometimes. I learned in my Foundations in CSR training that one of the biggest problems with CSR is lack of disclosure. Corporations may have socially responsible investment weaved very well into their management model, but still score low in my ratings because they either didn’t have the time, staff/resources, or the savvy to fully disclose it. On the other hand, since Sime Darby has the wherewithal to produce such a comprehensive annual report, it consequently received a higher-than-expected rating. Nonetheless, the corruption allegations brought the rating down a bit. It took me almost a week to complete its ratings, and I am ready to move on.