Sunrise Communications : wows with the best corporate governance and is the winner in the zRating Study 2018 done by Inrate

'We value strong corporate governance. That's why we're excited about our first-place ranking. Sunrise isn't merely a provider of telecommunications services that offers reliable products and services that its customers can rely on. We're also a company that takes corporate governance very seriously. We do this in part by ensuring that our shareholders have strong participation rights while also preventing potential conflicts of interest between the management and shareholders,' says Peter Kurer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sunrise.

The zRating has already been carried out for the tenth time by Inrate AG. In it, 176 Swiss public companies were analyzed on the basis of their 2017 annual reports and their 2018 annual general meetings, with this year's study now also taking changes to the company bylaws into consideration in the year they were approved by the annual general meeting.

The zRating Study looks at 59 criteria in the categories 'Shareholders and capital structure,' 'Shareholder participation rights,' 'Composition of the board of directors (BoD)/management board (MB) and information policies' as well as 'BOD/MB remuneration and participation models' and weights these assessments using a scoring model. A maximum score of 100 points can be earned in each category.

Sunrise succeeded in boosting its score by nine points over last year for a total of 87 of 100 possible points, thereby earning first place by a wide margin. Factors that helped propel Sunrise to the top included:

• Ingrid Deltenre's election as a new member to the Board of Directors which both boosted the ratio of women on the Board while also increasing the independence of the Board of Directors even further
• a new rule limiting Board members to a maximum of 10 third-party mandates
• the decision to transfer the delisting authority from the Board of Directors to the Annual General Meeting
• eliminating Board members' discretionary powers when registering nominees

Excerpt from the overall rankings (source: zRating Study 2018 by Inrate AG)

Cat. 1: Shareholders and capital structure

Cat. 2: Shareholder participation rights

Cat. 3: Composition of BoD/MB and information policies

Cat. 4: BoD/MB remuneration and participation models

Rank*	Company	Index	Industry	Score	Cat. 1	Cat. 2	Cat. 3	Cat. 4	2017	∆
1	Sunrise Communications	SMI Mid	Telecommunications	87	22	22	27	16	78	9
2	Burkhalter	Ex SMI Expanded	Industrials	81	23	24	22	12	64	17
3	Schaffner	Ex SMI Expanded	Industrials	79	22	16	23	18	77	2
4	Orior	Ex SMI Expanded	Consumer goods	78	22	17	23	16	76	2
5	PSP Swiss Property	SMI Mid	Real estate	77	23	19	18	17	75	2
6	Lonza Group	SMI	Healthcare	77	20	18	26	13	72	5
7	Ascom	Ex SMI Expanded	Technology	77	19	17	27	14	79	-2
8	Swisscom	SMI	Telecommunications	76	19	14	28	15	75	1
9	Landis+Gyr	Ex SMI Expanded	Industrials	74	20	18	24	12	new
10	Inficon	Ex SMI Expanded	Industrials	74	22	14	23	15	79	-5

*If two companies have the same score, the company that earned more points in the category 'Shareholder participation rights' followed by 'Shareholder and capital structure' will be ranked higher.

You can find all the details in the zRating Study 2018 by Inrate AG: https://www.inrate.com/en/f0185000147.html