Top Glove Corporation BHD
Top Glove (I remember it better as Top Gun), is the Malaysian based firm who’s financial reports I will be dissecting over the next few weeks while studying this accounting unit.
I definitely had a bit of a chuckle when I first read the name within the ‘find your company’ spreadsheet, but the more I read about this firm, the more waves I realized they are making. Top Glove are the worlds largest rubber glove manufacturer, who currently provide approximately 26% of the markets rubber gloves and export to 195 countries world wide. I was very eager to see any changes to their share value considering the ongoing health impacts from COVID-19, and was curious how they had benefited financially with what could reasonably be expected would have caused a large increase to their sales. My assumptions were correct and Top Glove shares had seen an increase of 420% since March 2020 - wow!
Top Glove was founded by Tan Sri Dr Lim Wee Cha in 1991, and has since expanded to have forty-five manufacturing factories, and has increased their product range to include other non-glove related goods such as; face masks, condoms, exercise bands and dental dams.
At first glance through the annual reports, I noticed the annual report for 2019 was considerably larger (by 40KB) than the previous reports for 2017 & 2018, and as Martin had mentioned within the study guide, the financial reports include a lot of marketing material, 'good news stories' for consumption, before the financial reports are displayed what so ever.
I began to look at some of Top Gloves’ most recent news headlines to get a feel for the direction they are currently travelling, and much to my surprise found that the United States has recently sanctioned Top Glove over accusations of forced labour (any work or service which people are forced to do against their will, under threat of punishment), and although there is such a high demand for these products at the moment, the ban has affected half of Top Gloves sales to the United States. Unfortunately, this is not the first time Top Glove has been featured negatively in the news for treatment of their 20,000 employees, with previous media reports alleging that its employees worked in exploitative conditions.
Looking strictly at the financial information and production capacity of the factories, Top Glove initially gives me the impression it is a successful business, that had had very favorable progression over the past 30 years. Upon reading some of the blog posts from my fellow students it's clear that a lot of people are concerned that they do not know a lot about the products their specific business provides - I feel comfortable that the products supplied by Top Glove are not of a technical nature, and this has possibly saved me
I am excited to begin dissecting the company’s financial statements to gain my own understand and perspective of Top Glove's business and economic realities.
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