UK: FRC publishes annual report

The Financial Reporting Council published its annual report yesterday: see here (pdf). Section two of the report is titled 'The state of corporate governance and reporting in the UK'. In the chairman's report section, Baroness Hogg, the outgoing FRC chairman, reasserts the FRC's mission: to help capital markets, and in particular the market for risk capital, function well. In doing so she provides a strong defence of the role of equity markets. Elsewhere in her report she describes the UK Stewardship Code as a 'fragile success' and, looking ahead, states her hope that the annual report should become "a disciplined distillation and communication of the information and issues of importance to investors".