Video transcript
An annual report is a once-a-year document for a company's owners. Weeks go on the cover photo. The required content gets pasted in last. Part one. The problem. The legal part is not optional. For a Bursa-listed company, the report is a compliance document first. Compliance means following the rules.
A required minimum must be included. It is not optional. The required floor contains six things. Audited financial statements. The directors' report. Corporate governance, against the 2021 code. Risk management and internal control. The audit committee report.
A board-approved sustainability statement. Part two. The answer. Design makes the rules readable. Design's first job: make it clear. A reader crosses 100 pages, and never feels lost. Strong navigation. Clean highlights.
A readable five-year review. Scannable governance tables. Design's second job: build trust. The chairman's statement. Management discussion and analysis. The value-creation model. A filing becomes a story owners believe. The clock is real.
Governance documents are filed with Bursa within four months of year end. The calendar is fixed first, before any creative work begins. Part three. The takeaway. Right things, right order. Plan time for both halves. Four to five months, kickoff to print. It can shrink to two to three months, but only if everything is ready on day one.
The order is simple. Get the required floor right first. Then make it clear. Then make it trusted. Compliance, then a credible story.
A Bursa-listed annual report is the document that, more than any other, decides how a Malaysian PLC is read by shareholders, regulators, and the analysts and investors who assess its risk, performance, and cost of capital. The audited financial statements are the legal floor. The narrative around them tells the market whether the year was a recovery, a build-out, or a step-change, and whether the board and management can articulate the strategy that follows.
Many Bursa-listed reports, as I see it from the agency side of the production, still treat content as a compliance exercise. Audited financials, directors’ report, MCCG disclosures, SORMIC, sustainability statement, off to the printer, dispatched ahead of the AGM. The filing clears Bursa, but the document does not always do the work of explaining how value was created or where the company is going. A report that reads well to a shareholder, that an analyst can navigate quickly, and that the board can sign off with confidence sits at a higher quality bar than one that only clears compliance.
This guide walks through the annual report content a Bursa-listed Malaysian company is expected to publish in 2026 and beyond. It covers the mandatory disclosures under the Main Market Listing Requirements (MMLR), the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) 2021, the Companies Act 2016, and the National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF) that aligns Bursa-listed disclosure with IFRS S1 and S2. It then sets out the narrative sections that distinguish a strong report from a compliant one, the design considerations that shape how readers actually move through the document, and the production realities behind every annual report calendar in Malaysia.
Bursa-listed companies, GLCs, and statutory bodies bring their annual, sustainability, and integrated reports to Walk Production: a 40-person in-house team in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor spanning editorial, design and infographics, with photography and print production coordinated through partners.
A note on scope. Walk Production is a design and copywriting studio. We are not an audit, assurance, ESG-advisory or legal firm, and this guide is not compliance advice. We shape how your report reads and looks. Where a project needs sustainability consulting, the consultant is appointed by you or drawn from our partner panel, and independent assurance and legal review stay with your appointed providers. Confirm every obligation cited here against the official Bursa Malaysia, Securities Commission Malaysia and IFRS sources linked in this guide.
What “annual report content” means under Bursa rules
The phrase “annual report content” is used loosely. In practice, a Bursa-listed annual report is governed by three sets of rules that overlap rather than nest cleanly.
The Main Market Listing Requirements (MMLR). Issued and maintained by Bursa Malaysia. Appendix 9C of the MMLR sets out the prescribed content for an annual report, including the directors’ report, audited financial statements, statement on directors’ responsibility, audit committee report, SORMIC, additional compliance information, recurrent related-party transactions where applicable, utilisation of proceeds where applicable, and the sustainability statement. ACE Market issuers follow the parallel ACE LR with broadly equivalent content under its own Appendix.
The Companies Act 2016. Section 253 governs the directors’ report and Section 248 to 256 cover the financial statements that must accompany it. The Act sets the legal baseline for every Malaysian limited company; the MMLR layers on the additional disclosure required of listed entities.
The Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) 2021. Issued by the Securities Commission Malaysia. MCCG is “comply or explain” rather than mandatory line-by-line, but the MMLR requires every Bursa-listed company to publish a Corporate Governance Overview Statement (CG Overview) referring to the practices applied and the practices departed from, plus a Corporate Governance Report (CG Report) on Bursa’s prescribed template that addresses each MCCG Practice in turn.
In addition to these three, a Bursa-listed company has to meet the National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF) inside its annual report. NSRF is the framework that aligns Malaysian sustainability disclosure with the ISSB’s IFRS S1 (general sustainability) and IFRS S2 (climate) standards, phased in from FY 2025 for the largest issuers. Section three of this guide covers the timeline in detail.
Content sits across four registers at once: a legal register (Companies Act and MMLR), a governance register (MCCG), a sustainability register (NSRF and IFRS S1/S2), and a narrative register (chairman’s statement, MD&A, value-creation story). Each carries a different reader and sign-off chain. Confusion about which content belongs in which register is the most common reason a report drifts off-brief during production.
The mandatory disclosure floor
Every Bursa-listed annual report has to clear a baseline of mandatory content. Missing any of the items below will not clear internal review, let alone Bursa. The list is condensed; the live MMLR Appendix 9C, the MCCG, and the Companies Act remain the authoritative texts. Always confirm the current published version of each before sign-off.
Audited financial statements
A complete set of audited financial statements prepared under Malaysian Financial Reporting Standards (MFRS), which the Malaysian Accounting Standards Board (MASB) aligns with IFRS Accounting Standards. The statements cover the statement of financial position, the statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income, the statement of changes in equity, the statement of cash flows, and detailed notes including accounting policies. The independent auditor’s report, addressed to the shareholders, expresses an opinion on whether the statements give a true and fair view under MFRS and the Companies Act 2016.
Directors’ report
The directors’ report sits under Section 253 of the Companies Act 2016 and accompanies the financial statements. It covers the principal activities of the company and its subsidiaries, the results for the financial year, dividends declared and paid, reserves and provisions, directors’ interests (including shareholdings and any benefits received), directors’ remuneration and retirement benefits, indemnity arrangements for directors and officers, auditor remuneration, a solvency statement under Section 252 in the case of a dividend declaration, and a statement on items of a material or unusual nature. The board approves the report; at least two directors sign it.
Corporate governance disclosures
Bursa Malaysia requires every listed issuer to publish a two-part governance disclosure. The Corporate Governance Overview Statement summarises governance practices across three areas under MCCG 2021: board leadership and effectiveness, audit and risk management, and meaningful relationships with stakeholders. The Corporate Governance Report addresses each MCCG Practice using Bursa’s prescribed template, and where a company departs from a Practice, the report has to explain the reasoning and describe the alternative measures applied. Both documents are published alongside the annual report and are filed with Bursa within four months of the financial year end.
Statement on risk management and internal control (SORMIC)
Known on the agency side simply as the SORMIC, this statement sets out how the board identifies, assesses, monitors, and mitigates principal risks across the group. The board confirms that internal controls are adequate and effective for the financial year under review. External auditors review the SORMIC under guidance from the Malaysian Institute of Accountants, including Recommended Practice Guide 5 (Revised). The scope of the SORMIC has widened over the past three reporting cycles to cover emerging ESG and climate-related risks alongside the traditional financial, operational, and compliance risks.
Audit Committee Report
A standalone report from the Audit Committee covering its composition, the meeting frequency for the financial year, the key matters reviewed (financial reporting issues, audit findings, internal audit work, related-party transactions, whistleblowing matters), and the committee’s oversight of the external and internal auditors. The committee chair signs the report. Specificity is what separates a strong Audit Committee Report from a generic one: a board-room reader looks for the named matters reviewed, not a restatement of the terms of reference.
Sustainability statement
Since the FY 2016 phased introduction, every Bursa-listed company has had to include a board-approved sustainability statement covering material economic, environmental, and social topics. The disclosure framework moved to Enhanced Sustainability Reporting (commonly referred to as MSER 2.0) from FY 2023. Bursa-listed sustainability disclosure is now transitioning under the National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF), developed by the Advisory Committee on Sustainability Reporting (ACSR), endorsed by the Ministry of Finance, and published through the Securities Commission Malaysia, aligned with the ISSB’s IFRS S1 and S2. Implementation is phased through regulator guidance, including the Bursa sustainability framework page.
NSRF and IFRS S1/S2 adoption timeline
The most consequential change to Bursa annual report content over the last two reporting cycles is the adoption of the National Sustainability Reporting Framework. NSRF references the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards (IFRS S1 and S2) issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), and phases adoption across Bursa-listed issuers by market capitalisation and market segment.
Per Bursa Malaysia’s sustainability framework page, the phased timeline applies to financial years beginning on or after the following dates.
| Market segment | Market capitalisation threshold | First NSRF reporting year (FY beginning on or after) |
|---|---|---|
| Main Market - large cap | Above RM2 billion as at 31 December 2024 | 1 January 2025 |
| Main Market - remaining issuers | Below the large-cap threshold | 1 January 2026 |
| ACE Market | All issuers | 1 January 2027 |
Two transition reliefs are particularly relevant to the first reporting cycle:
- Climate-only in year one. For the first reporting year, Main Market large-cap issuers may focus disclosure on climate-related risks and opportunities under IFRS S2 and defer general sustainability disclosure under IFRS S1 in the first year.
- Scope 3 GHG deferral. Disclosure of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions can be deferred for the early years of adoption, reflecting the data-collection lead time many Malaysian issuers face on their value chains.
Always confirm the live timeline and reliefs with the Bursa Malaysia sustainability page and the IFRS Foundation’s Sustainability Standards Navigator before signing off the framework section of your annual report. Bursa periodically updates the guidance in line with regulator consultation and global ISSB developments.
Three things follow from NSRF adoption for the content team drafting the sustainability section.
The framework reference matters. As Bursa-listed sustainability disclosure transitions under the NSRF/ISSB-aligned framework, the statement increasingly references that framework alongside the existing Bursa sustainability requirements. Naming the framework correctly, with a paragraph on which year of phased adoption applies, signals that the disclosure has been built against the current standard.
Governance disclosure inside the sustainability statement is heavier. IFRS S2 requires disclosure of the governance processes, controls, and procedures the board uses to monitor climate-related risks and opportunities, plus the role of management in assessing those risks. That cannot be lifted from prior years’ boilerplate.
Strategy disclosure separates physical from transitional climate risks. Bursa-listed issuers disclose how each risk category could affect the business model and value chain over the short, medium, and long term, plus strategy resilience under different climate scenarios. A practical first-year approach is qualitative scenario narrative supported by the existing risk register, with quantitative climate analysis deepened over subsequent cycles as data and modelling capacity build up.
For more on how the broader sustainability landscape in Malaysia is evolving, see our Bursa sustainability reporting guide and the regulatory layering across MMLR, NSRF, and IFRS S1/S2 and our notes on the elements of a sustainability report.
Narrative sections that build trust
The mandatory disclosure floor in the previous two sections is the regulatory baseline. The narrative sections below are not strictly required by the MMLR line by line, but they are present in every Bursa-listed annual report I have seen produced for the Malaysian market. They are also the sections an analyst, a fund manager, or an award-focused review team actually reads first.
Chairman’s statement
The chairman’s statement sets the tone for the entire report. It looks back over the year from the perspective of the board and looks forward to the strategic direction the board is asking management to pursue. A strong chairman’s statement does three things at once: it acknowledges the year’s challenges honestly, it frames the financial result against the strategic backdrop the board set at the start of the year, and it lays out the board’s view of the next 12 to 36 months. It reads as a personal letter from a chairman to long-term holders, not a templated foreword that could sit on any other PLC’s report.
CEO or managing director’s review
The CEO review bridges the chairman’s statement and operational detail. Where the chairman speaks to the year and strategy, the CEO speaks to how strategy was executed. The section typically covers segment performance, key operational metrics, market conditions during the year, capital expenditure and capacity decisions, key initiatives launched, and what the management team is focused on for the year ahead. The combination of chairman’s statement and CEO review reads strongest when the two voices are clearly distinct.
Management discussion and analysis (MD&A)
The MD&A is the analytical backbone of any annual report. It goes deeper than the financial statements into revenue drivers, cost structures, segment performance, capital allocation, working capital movement, gearing, and capital expenditure. Under MCCG Practice 2.1, the board is encouraged to disclose a transparent discussion of business operations, market environment, and future outlook. Reports prepared for NACRA-style review typically use the MD&A to draw clear lines between strategy, performance, and risk.
A practical content rule: every quantitative claim ties back to a specific line in the audited financial statements, and every forward-looking statement carries a cautionary disclosure explaining the basis of preparation and the principal assumptions.
Financial highlights and five-year review
A well-designed financial highlights section translates dense accounting data into a quick visual summary. The standard format is a five-year comparison of revenue, profit before tax, profit attributable to shareholders, earnings per share, dividends per share, return on equity, total assets, and net assets per share, supported by trend charts and ratio dashboards. This section is often the first piece of analytical content a non-specialist reader engages with; the design of these few spreads determines whether the rest of the report gets read at all.
Value creation model
Increasingly common in Malaysian integrated reports: a single spread that maps inputs (financial capital, human capital, manufactured capital, intellectual capital, natural capital, social and relationship capital) to outputs and outcomes for stakeholders. The IIRC framework that underpins the value creation model is now folded into the broader IFRS Foundation work, but the spread remains a useful design device for connecting the financial result to the sustainability disclosure.
Stakeholder engagement and materiality
Strong sustainability statements describe how the company identified its material ESG topics. MMLR Appendix 9C carries disclosure on stakeholder identification, engagement types, frequency, and responsiveness, plus the material sustainability matters that emerged from the engagement.
NSRF and IFRS S1 take an investor-focused view: the company identifies sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could reasonably be expected to affect its financial position, performance, cash flows, access to finance, or cost of capital over the short, medium, and long term. This is financial materiality, assessed from the perspective of the primary users of general-purpose financial reports. Where an issuer also references GRI Standards or publishes a separate sustainability report, an impact materiality view (how the company’s activities affect people and the environment) sits alongside the ISSB lens and is clearly distinguished from it. Where a separate sustainability report is published, the annual report section still carries a clean materiality summary and links out to the fuller document.
For issuers running an integrated report rather than two separate documents, the integrated annual report format sits well alongside IFRS S1/S2 because both share the same starting point: connecting financial performance with the sustainability matters that affect long-term value creation.
Governance content that goes deeper
The MCCG and the MMLR set the floor for governance disclosure. Bursa-listed issuers with serious institutional investor coverage tend to go beyond the floor in three specific areas.
Board composition and skills matrix
MMLR Paragraph 15.08 carries the disclosure requirements on board composition. Appendix 9C carries the wider annual report disclosure on the board, including diversity. A board skills matrix is the most common way Bursa-listed issuers go beyond a simple director-by-director biography. The matrix maps each director against the skills, experience, and tenure that the board considers material to the company’s strategy: industry experience, financial expertise, audit, risk, technology, sustainability, geographic exposure, and so on. The narrative explains how the mix supports the strategy.
Audit and risk committee disclosure
The mandatory Audit Committee Report is the floor. A strong report goes beyond by naming the key matters reviewed during the year (specific accounting judgements, material related-party transactions, fraud investigations, whistleblowing matters), describing how audit quality was assessed, and disclosing actions taken on internal audit findings. The same applies to the Risk Management Committee where risk oversight has been split out from the audit committee.
Remuneration disclosure
Under MCCG Practice 8, listed issuers are encouraged to disclose senior management remuneration on a named-individual or banded basis, depending on the practice applied. While historically Malaysian issuers have provided minimal remuneration detail beyond aggregate director remuneration disclosed under the Companies Act, more issuers have moved toward a clear remuneration report that links pay to performance over multi-year incentive periods. Institutional investors and proxy advisers read this section closely; the long-term trend in Malaysia is toward greater transparency.
Annual report vs annual review vs standalone sustainability
New listed clients often ask which format their content should take. For a Bursa-listed PLC, the format decides where content sits. The mandatory MMLR disclosure set belongs in the annual report on every route, so the choice changes the writing plan more than the disclosure list.
- Integrated annual report. The sustainability statement is woven through the operating narrative, so the editorial team has to keep the financial and sustainability content in step from the materiality refresh to the final proof.
- Annual report plus standalone sustainability report. The standalone report carries the extended ESG metrics, GRI-referenced indicators and TCFD-aligned climate disclosure. The sustainability statement inside the annual report still has to stand on its own and link out clearly to the longer document.
- Annual review. Statutory bodies, universities and non-listed GLCs more often publish one. It carries highlights, narrative and infographic-led data without the mandatory financial-statement and governance disclosure of a Bursa-listed annual report.
The companion guide on annual report formats and design compares all four formats side by side, with the reader, design system and sign-off load behind each.
Bilingual considerations for Malaysian readers
Bursa-listed annual reports are usually published in English. Statutory bodies, GLCs that hold a national mandate, and listed issuers with material government or domestic-retail stakeholder bases more often publish a bilingual Bahasa Malaysia and English document, or a parallel pair of single-language documents.
For the content team, bilingual scope changes the writing plan. Both versions have to carry the same regulatory content, with the same defined terms, figures and governance language, so a reader of either version receives the same disclosure. Terminology is agreed once and applied in both languages, and Bahasa Malaysia can run longer than the same English content, which the page plan has to absorb. The layout options (parallel, sequential, or a hybrid of the two) are covered in the companion guide’s section on bilingual layout discipline.
For statutory bodies in particular, the bilingual mandate sits at the centre of the brief. Walk Production’s work on the Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) 2023 annual report covered art direction, copywriting, Bahasa Malaysia translation, graphic design, and print production in parallel English and BM versions so each reader received the same regulatory content without one language reading as an afterthought of the other.
Print specifications for Malaysian annual reports
Annual report print specifications are agreed brief by brief, against the client’s house standards, AGM distribution plan, and budget. Paper, binding and finishing are design and production decisions, and the companion guide covers them in its section on print specifications and binding choices.
Two content decisions feed those specifications, and both belong to the content plan. The first is extent: the page count of the narrative sections and of the financial statements, estimated separately, because the total drives the binding choice. The second is shelf life. A long report expected to sit on a shelf as a multi-year reference tends to suit sewn binding, which holds up better than glue-only binding over the document’s working life, while shorter publications such as annual reviews and sustainability summaries use lighter formats. Agree both before the page plan is fixed.
4 Walk Production Bursa-listed projects
These four projects illustrate the range of annual report content a Bursa-listed issuer or comparable Malaysian organisation might produce. The notes below cover what each report had to say and where the content sat; the companion guide on annual report design across formats covers the same projects from the design and production side. Naming is taken directly from each company’s official listing record.
Swift Haulage Berhad 2024 (Main Market)
Swift Haulage Berhad is an integrated logistics group on the Bursa Main Market. The 2024 report is a single integrated document covering the operational review, the sustainability statement, and the audited financial statements. Walk Production’s scope covered annual report design, infographic design, report copywriting, sustainability statement copywriting, and print production.
On the content side, the copywriting team wrote the non-financial sections, including the operational reviews, management discussion and corporate highlights, in one narrative voice aligned with the report’s theme. The sustainability statement was written to show how the group’s responsible practices connect to its long-term strategy, and it was threaded through the operational narrative instead of being parked in a back-of-book appendix.
Sarawak Oil Palms Berhad 2024 (Main Market)
Sarawak Oil Palms Berhad (SOP) is a Sarawak-based palm oil group on the Bursa Main Market, with operations along the palm oil value chain and in property development. The 2024 report ran to 280 pages. Sustainability sits in its own section, the Sustainability Report 2024, after the chairman’s statement and the management discussion and analysis, so shareholders read the financial and sustainability disclosures in one publication. Scope covered annual report design, infographic design, proofreading, media advertisement placement, print production, and direct mail distribution to registered shareholders.
The proofreading pass covered narrative copy, data presentations and governance statements, with the financial and disclosure-sensitive sections reviewed by the client’s reporting advisers. Cross-checking section titles, the contents page and page references is the content discipline that keeps a report of that length navigable.
Sunview Group Berhad 2024 (ACE Market)
Sunview Group Berhad is a solar and renewable-energy group on the Bursa ACE Market. The 2024 annual report covered concept development, visual and layout design, infographic design, and print production, with content running across financial highlights, operational reviews, corporate governance and sustainability. ACE Market annual reports follow a parallel set of Listing Requirements to the Main Market, with the same baseline content set but slightly different thresholds for items such as recurrent related-party transaction disclosure.
Icon Offshore Berhad 2023 (Main Market)
Icon Offshore Berhad, now Lianson Fleet Group Berhad, operates offshore vessels supporting oil and gas exploration and production, on the Bursa Main Market. The 2023 annual report carried the theme Realising a Greener Sustainable Future, with a dedicated Our Sustainability Performance chapter alongside the business, strategy, governance and financial sections. The content runs across six sections, from Our Business to Other Information, so a reader looking for the ESG disclosures can go straight to them.
Two further projects sit alongside the Bursa-listed work in the same agency calendar because they cover content formats Bursa-listed issuers regularly publish in parallel.
Annual review variant: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) 2023
UTP’s 2023 Annual Review is an annual review rather than a Bursa-listed annual report. UTP is a private university and not a listed entity, so the publication carries institutional highlights, research outputs, ranking metrics, and milestone narrative without the mandatory financial-statement and governance disclosure required of a Bursa-listed PLC. For a listed group that also runs a foundation, a university, or a non-listed subsidiary, the annual review format is often the right vehicle for the non-listed entity’s annual storytelling, with the listed parent carrying the formal annual report.
Statutory body: Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) 2023
MAVCOM was the statutory body responsible for the economic regulation of Malaysian civil aviation until its functions passed to the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia on 1 August 2025. Its 2023 annual report is a statutory body publication rather than a Bursa-listed annual report. The brief covered art direction, copywriting, Bahasa Malaysia translation, graphic design, and print production across parallel English and BM versions. On the content side, the writing and translation paid close attention to regulatory terminology, official government language standards and sector-specific vocabulary, so both language versions carry the same regulatory content at the same quality.
What NACRA tells us about reporting quality
The National Annual Corporate Report Awards (NACRA) are organised jointly by Bursa Malaysia, the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), and MICPA. NACRA comprises four award categories, including Excellence Awards and Special Awards. For the Excellence Awards, entrants are assessed across six areas including corporate information, sustainability reporting, and corporate governance. Refer to the current NACRA 2025 brochure for the live framework and category breakdown.
A theme award-focused review teams often work toward in our experience is connectivity. The financial statements may be sound, the sustainability statement detailed, the governance disclosure thorough, but the connections between the three are not always made on the page. How does the principal risk register feed the strategy? How does the materiality assessment feed the sustainability statement? How does climate-related disclosure under IFRS S2 feed the SORMIC? Reports preparing for NACRA-style review tend to make those connections explicit.
A related editorial point: narrative sections read strongest in a single distinctive voice. Chairman’s statements and CEO reviews edited for weeks until every distinctive phrase is gone tend to read as templated.
Content flow and page architecture
The most effective Bursa-listed annual reports follow a stable content flow. Variations exist, but the order below is the one most readers expect.
- Cover, theme statement, contents
- Corporate information (company profile, board, key management, group structure)
- Five-year financial highlights
- Key event timeline for the financial year
- Chairman’s statement
- Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A)
- Sustainability statement (or integrated sustainability content threaded through the narrative)
- Corporate Governance Overview Statement
- Audit Committee Report
- Statement on Risk Management and Internal Control (SORMIC)
- Other compliance statements (Directors’ Responsibility Statement, Additional Compliance Information)
- Directors’ Report (Section 253)
- Audited Financial Statements
- Statement by Directors and Statutory Declaration
- Independent Auditor’s Report
- Additional information (analysis of shareholdings, list of properties, recurrent related-party transactions where applicable)
- Notice of AGM and Proxy Form
Variations on this order are common. The chairman’s statement sometimes opens the report immediately after the cover. Sustainability content is sometimes integrated through the operational narrative rather than appearing as a standalone section. Variation is fine. What matters is that the reader can find every mandatory item, and that the design respects the way the report is actually read: front to back for the narrative, by section for the analyst, by page reference for the regulator.
Planning the annual report calendar
A Bursa annual report typically runs to a four-to-five month production calendar from concept kickoff to delivered print copies. Working backwards from the AGM date is the practical way to set the schedule.
| Month | Stage | Critical content tasks |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | Concept and structure | Theme development, content structure, page architecture, design moodboards, executive interview schedule |
| Month 2 | Content drafting (narrative and sustainability) | Chairman’s statement, CEO review, MD&A, sustainability statement, materiality refresh |
| Month 3 | Financial integration and design rounds | Financial statements drop into layout, first design rounds, board feedback, adviser feedback |
| Month 4 | Sign-off, audit, and proof rounds | Audit sign-off, sustainability assurance sign-off where applicable, board approval, final proofs |
| Month 5 | Print, dispatch, and digital release | Print production, AGM packs, direct mail, Bursa filing, microsite, interactive PDF |
Compressed two-to-three-month timelines are workable when source content (financials, sustainability metrics, operational narrative) is ready at briefing. The compressed schedule trades concept exploration for production speed: the design system tightens up, executive interview rounds shorten, and editorial works in parallel with audit sign-off rather than after it.
For the content team, the key calendar decision is to compile the sustainability content alongside the financial data from month one, so it is ready when the financial statements drop into layout. Issuers inside an NSRF reporting year start earlier still, and the companion guide’s production calendar sets out that longer schedule month by month against the AGM date.
Common content gaps that weaken Bursa reports
A handful of content gaps come up consistently across Bursa-listed annual reports.
Strategy disclosure that does not connect to performance. Chairman’s and CEO content that talks about strategy in abstract terms alongside an MD&A that talks about performance in numerical terms, with no bridge between the two. The reader cannot tell whether the strategic priorities the board set at the start of the year actually drove the financial result.
Sustainability statement that reads as a separate document. Despite NSRF and IFRS S1/S2, some sustainability statements still read as standalone disclosures with no visible connection to the strategy, the risk register, or the financial result. The common indicator: a different writing voice, graphic system, and colour palette from the rest of the report.
SORMIC without principal risks. A SORMIC that describes the risk management framework in detail but does not name the principal risks the board sees facing the group. Without the named risks, the SORMIC does not tell the reader what the board is worrying about.
Audit Committee Report without specific matters reviewed. A report that recites terms of reference and meeting frequency without naming the actual issues considered during the year. A board-room reader looks for specificity here.
Five-year highlights without commentary. A five-year financial summary with no narrative explaining the inflection points (acquisitions, divestments, capital raisings, regulatory changes) leaves the reader to interpret the numbers in isolation.
Stale photography. Photography recycled from prior years (same boardroom shot, same factory floor, same site visit) is a low-cost signal of currency working against the report.
Generic chairman’s statement. A statement that could be lifted out of this report and dropped into any other Bursa-listed PLC’s report. The strongest chairman’s statements are unmistakably the voice of one chairman speaking about one company in one specific year.
How Walk Production can help
As an annual report design agency based in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, we produce annual reports, sustainability reports, and integrated reports for Bursa-listed companies, GLCs, and statutory bodies. One 40-person account team carries concept development, annual report copywriting, bilingual Bahasa Malaysia and English translation, layout design, infographic design, photography, interactive PDF, print production, and AGM-stage distribution from brief to delivery.
Our publication portfolio includes Bursa-listed annual reports alongside sustainability reports, integrated reports, and statutory body publications. The reporting projects we work on regularly involve coordinating governance content, sustainability disclosure, financial integration, and stakeholder review against the AGM calendar. For issuers approaching the FY 2025 or FY 2026 NSRF adoption window, start the content conversation early so the sustainability statement is drafted alongside the financial close rather than after it.
Talk to our team if your next reporting cycle is open and the content brief is still being shaped.
