Biva will ask for information on diversity issues

As of January 2023, all companies that carry out a debt or capital issue through the Institutional Stock Market (Biva) must present information on their actions, initiatives or strategies on issues of diversity and gender.

“Biva has a new initiative that will apply from 2023 to all capital and debt issuances. Any station is going to have to fill out a diversity questionnaire,” said the general director of the stock exchange, María Ariza.

He added that the objective of carrying out this questionnaire is to make an analysis of what is happening in the internal processes of companies in relation to gender and diversity policies.

María Ariza specified that this information will not be published in the first two years, but from 2026 it will be disseminated through the media and systems available to the Institutional Stock Market.

“We are visualizing that this is an important issue to understand and if we want to make a change we have to measure where we are because if these issues are not measured and if the numbers are not measured, it is very difficult to make a change,” he commented.

He mentioned that this initiative, which was presented to the regulatory authority a year ago, was recently authorized by the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), for which reason they will begin to apply the questionnaire next week to all companies that issue debt and equity. .

The board of directors assured that since the birth of the Institutional Stock Market (at the end of July 2018) one of its main objectives has been to promote the inclusion of more women in the boards of directors of public companies, not only for aspects of equity , but as a sure way to help companies to increase their competitiveness.

According to data from 50/50 Women on Boards México, of the 182 companies that have issued debt or equity in the Mexican stock market do not have women on their boards and 64% have no independent female director.

It points out that of 2,439 seats on the boards of companies registered in the capital market, only 57 are occupied by women who participate as independent directors with proprietary seats.

While in the debt market the situation is not very different, since there is only a record of 42 independent women directors with proprietary seats among the 1,728 seats that make up the boards of the broadcasters in total.

judith.santiago@eleconomista.mx