TWSE vs TPEx: One Regime on Two Boards

35× and 1.06×

Korea’s two exchanges generate the sharpest governance gap the Apex G-Score framework reads in any covered market. KOSPI produces 5.9% Celestial issuers. KOSDAQ produces 0.2%. The ratio is approximately thirty-five to one.^[1]

Taiwan’s two boards produce a different reading.

TWSE Celestial: 47.7%. TPEx Celestial: 50.6%. The junior board is slightly more Celestial than the mainboard. The Chameleon share is 2.7 percentage points higher on TWSE. The Kill Switch prevalence differs by 0.4 percentage points. No archetype differential exceeds three percentage points.

Korea’s KOSPI/KOSDAQ Celestial ratio was approximately thirty-five to one. Taiwan’s TWSE/TPEx is 1.06 to one. Two boards, one distribution.

The Same Sub-Tags

The Chameleon sub-tag distribution replicates the aggregate finding at the sub-classification level:

Both boards exhibit the same B-weak dominant pattern at approximately 71%, the same R-weak minority at approximately 26%, and the same zero T-weak structural feature that Note 1 documented.^[2]

The per-axis distributions confirm the convergence. On the T-axis, 95.8% of TWSE issuers and 97.7% of TPEx issuers score at or above 70 — TPEx is, counterintuitively, slightly more saturated than TWSE. The B-axis shows the same wide-spread distribution shape on both boards, with approximately 63% of issuers clearing 70 on each. The R-axis is bimodal on both boards.

The cross-market contrast with Korea is instructive. Korea’s KOSPI/KOSDAQ B-axis mean gap was approximately thirty axis points. Taiwan’s TWSE/TPEx B-axis differential is approximately one to two axis points.

The English-Mandate Paradox

The convergence across boards is structurally surprising for one specific reason. TWSE imposes an English-language corporate governance report mandate on qualifying listed companies above a paid-in-capital threshold. TPEx does not.^[3] If the English mandate were the primary driver of Taiwan’s T-axis saturation, TPEx should exhibit a visibly lower T-axis distribution than TWSE.

It does not. TPEx’s T-axis distribution is essentially identical to TWSE’s — and on the threshold metric, percentage of issuers at or above 70, TPEx is marginally higher. Other forces — the IFRS-equivalent regime applied uniformly to both boards, the FSC Corporate Governance Evaluation system covering both boards, the progressive independent director mandate — appear to push TPEx firms to disclose at TWSE-equivalent levels regardless of the formal English-mandate boundary.

The Audit Committee migration mandate confirms the pattern. The FSC’s 2022 requirement for listed companies to transition from a supervisory-board structure to an Audit Committee has reached essentially complete execution on both boards: 98.8% of TWSE and 100% of TPEx issuers now operate under the Audit Committee structure.^[4]

Same Prevalence, Different Pathology

The Kill Switch reading is where the two boards’ governance profiles diverge in composition, even as they converge in prevalence. TWSE and TPEx both flag approximately 7.5–7.9% of their universes under Kill Switch override. The rate is essentially identical. The trigger mix is not.^[5]

TWSE Kill Switch firings are dominated by KS-1 — excessive insider share pledging — which accounts for 53% of TWSE’s flagged issuers. TPEx Kill Switch firings are dominated by KS-4 — board capture by a single institutional shareholder — which accounts for 54% of TPEx’s flagged issuers. TWSE produces all fifteen of Taiwan’s KS-5 filing-default cases. TPEx produces zero.

The three triggers produce a structural reading. TWSE’s governance risk is concentrated-ownership risk — the pledging exposure that sits at the intersection of family control and leveraged corporate finance. TPEx’s governance risk is concentrated-influence risk — the board-structure capture that small companies with institutional parent shareholders are exposed to. The rate is the same. The mechanism is different.

Two Boards, One Floor

The finding that Taiwan’s two boards operate as one governance regime carries a specific implication for the broader Foundation Series. The board-level variation that the framework detects in Taiwan is not regime-level. Taiwan’s TWSE and TPEx share a governance floor established by T-axis saturation, share the same B-weak and R-weak Chameleon pathology mix, and share the same aggregate archetype distribution.

The structural risk that concentrates within this regime is not board-level. It is cluster-level. Note 3 takes up the question that the board-level analysis defers: what does the cluster pathology look like when the framework traces family-controlled firms across their multiple listings?

Apex Governance LLC · Taiwan Foundation Series · Note 2 of 6. Production data: GS-TWN v06 (scored 2026-04-27). Board breakdown: TWSE 1,082 + TPEx 883 = 1,965 total in current production batch. The externally cited universe count of 1,962 reflects a minor difference from incremental listing additions. Taiwan’s annual report filing deadline falls at end of Q2; FY2025 financials were not universe-complete at the April 2026 scoring date. FY2024 is the latest fiscal year with full coverage across all 1,965 issuers. Korea reading: FY2025 cross-section. Taiwan reading: FY2024 cross-section. The one-year offset reflects FSC filing-deadline calendar differences (Taiwan Q2 vs Korea Q1). Per Apex G-Score IP guardrails: indicator weights, classifier thresholds, and per-firm exact scores (outside Sample 3-firm) are NDA.