H&H Webranking for Swedish state-owned published today

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet publishes the Swedish state-owned H&H Webranking result today. The energy giant Vattenfall defends the top position in H&H Webranking of state-owned companies. The partly state-owned telecommunication company TeliaSonera comes second and the bank Nordea takes the bronze. The forest owner and supplier of timber Sveaskog is this year’s climber with a massive 18.25 point increase. State-owned companies have generally been lagging behind listed companies in Sweden, but this year the survey shows that the difference has decreased.

There are 20 state-owned Swedish companies included in the survey, all with a turnover over 850 million (TeliaSonera, Nordea and SAS, are partly owned by the state).

The winner Vattenfall continues to have a top class website, even if you compare with the listed companies included in the survey.

"Vattenfall clearly uses the website as their primary communication channel. Even financial information is in top class, which is unusual for a non-listed company. The Press section is among the best we have seen in the study and contains almost all of the information that is required. In addition, Vattenfall is in the forefront and offers podcasting subscription services to make it easier for both journalists and other stakeholders to keep track of what is happening within the company", says Marcus Eriksson.

State-owned vs. Swedish listed

The average score for state-owned companies is 48.5 (of the maximum 90.75), which is nearly the same as for the listed companies in Sweden (49). The survey shows that in some areas, state-owned companies are well above their listed peers. In the Career section for example, the state-owned had an average of 2.35 compared to 1.49 for the listed companies (maximum score is 5 points). 

“It is surprising that state-owned companies are performing better than public companies in the career section, especially since state-owned companies are usually not at the top when students list their future dream jobs.
State-owned companies also show good results within the CSR section. The Swedish Enterprise of Ministry (Näringsdepartementet) requires that state-owned companies follow the GRI-standards (Global Reporting Initiative) in their sustainability reports. 85% (26% last year) of the state-owned companies describe on their websites that they follow GRI compared with 17% of the listed companies. 19 of the 20 state-owned companies have a sustainability report on the website.

Areas where state-owned companies can continue to improve are in the Corporate Governance section and offer more contact information.

The climbers

Sveaskog is this year's climber with an increase of 18.25 points from last year. "Sveaskog has today a much more comprehensive and information-rich website compared to previous years. Examples of improvements are mainly within navigation structure, Google visibility and financial information.

Other examples of companies that have improved significantly since last year are SJ, Svensk Bilprovning and Svenska Spel.

The results for 2009, Swedish state-owned companies

Article in SvD, May 20 2009 (in Swedish)