When four may not be enough

IF a large board is frowned upon as it can be unwieldy, then a small one ought to raise questions on its effectiveness to raise shareholder value.

Pick the number four; then make that two independent directors and two non-independent non-executive directors including a chairman who is majority owner of the firm.

What do we get? S i2i Ltd - a mainboard-listed firm formerly known as Media Ring, whose flagging business of distributing telecom and IT-related products and services pushed it to the corporate sidewalks of the Singapore Exchange's (SGX) dreaded watch list in March last year.

It wasn't always this way. Up until less tha…