The Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden) recently won the 2014 Best Corporate Governance award in Saudi Arabia from the World Finance Magazine in its March-April 2014 edition. The prestigious award reflects the strong focus Ma'aden has placed on continuously improving the integrity and transparency of its corporate governance framework, company officials said on Monday. Ma'aden Chairman Eng. Abdullah Al-Saif commented: “As Ma'aden continues to champion the responsible development of the mining sector in Saudi Arabia, this award demonstrates that the dedication of our employees and our Board are helping us reach our vision of becoming a world class minerals enterprise.” Ma'aden's President & CEO Eng. Khalid Al-Mudaifer said: “At Ma'aden, our governance framework goes beyond ensuring compliance with laws and regulations, it extends to risk management, business conduct standards and policy compliance. This award recognizes Ma'aden's commitment to the highest standards of integrity and transparency which have helped shape our corporate governance into a system that effectively serves the interests of our shareholders, management, employees, customers and the communities in which we operate.” He added: “This award comes after a long journey led by our Board, which is setting the tone in building an integrated and comprehensive governance structure that is effectively implemented by teams working together from across Ma'aden including operations, strategy, finance, audit, ERM and Legal.” World Finance, a financial magazine regulated by UK publications law, has a global readership of the key decision makers worldwide, including CEOs, CIOs, COOs heads of institutional investment firms, and heads of banks among others. The World Finance Corporate Governance Awards are conducted every year. This year, award winners in other countries include Bahrain Bourse (Bahrain), Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (UAE), Nestle (Switzerland), American Express (USA), Veolia (France), Vodafone Group (UK) and SAP AG (Germany). In 2013, Ma'aden was also nominated for the “Leading Corporate Investor Relations - Saudi Arabia” award by the Middle East Investor Relations Society together with Thomson Reuters, on the basis of an annual survey of investment bankers, brokers and fund managers. “Our nomination came about as a result of our growing reputation as an outstanding performer in investor relations, built on our sustained success in ensuring transparency and compliance while proactively communicating with the market by informing our shareholders of all key developments and by holding dialogue with the investment community,” the company said in a statement. – SG
