Into the Great Wide Open

There can't have been many winners from the 1997 Asian crisis. But while the region teetered on the brink of financial collapse, one company began to reap the rewards of Asia's newfound awareness of good disclosure practice. 'The crisis was a rude awakening for many companies. Transparency became the buzzword of the year, and that was good for us,' recalls Alison Chow, CEO of IRAsia.com, a Hong Kong-based market information portal. Though Asian companies are still hardly regarded as world beaters