Giordano is a company unlike the majority in Hong Kong, with its broad-based shareholding and management style. This makes a real contribution to its bottom-line success

IN HONG KONG and some other Asian countries, Giordano International is synonymous with comfortably priced causal wear. More elegant than its clothes is its shareholding structure.

Unlike most of the locally listed firms whose shares are highly concentrated in a single group or family, Giordano is widely held. Its largest shareholder, Harris Associates, has just 9.47 per cent - lower than the 10 per cent disclosure threshold for substantial shareholders under present regulations.

Not including share options, Giordano's five directors hold less than 1 per cent of the company's total share capital.

'In Hong Kong, you can find such a shareholding structure in only two companies. Giordano is one, HSBC is the another,' executive director Terry Ng Sze-yuen said on a recent Saturday morning at one of the chain's outlets in Causeway Bay.

Giordano's example adds weight to the theory that separation between management and ownership can lead to better corporate governance.

Last year, for example, the company cut its directors' pay by 23.33 per cent even though its profit increased 15.55 per cent.

Management's self-discipline is also evident in the company's offices - in a modest, low-rent Cheung Sha Wan Road industrial building which is more than 20 years old.