Many people see our main line of business as the management of companies’ share registers. Do you have any comments on this?
Traditional services developed by the share registrar have expanded considerably over the last few years. This is highlighted by the renaming of our registry services division to Computershare Investor Services.

We see the core maintenance of the share register as the basis for providing an ever increasing range of services to both investors and companies. This has been demonstrated by our development of global analytics, employee services and document services businesses. We have focused on developing a complete range of products delivered over the Internet to both investors and companies.

The financial services industry is like a technology arms race, with the winners in the technology race taking the prize. Computershare now has close to 500 technology staff who primarily service our registry business worldwide.

The Employee Plan Business seems high on your radar, can you explain why?
At Computershare we have seen the power of employees owning shares in our company and see this as a growing trend by companies. We also see other countries following the lead of the UK, who have encouraged employee share ownership with aggressive tax concessions. As both governments and companies realise the power of employee share ownership, this area of our business will expand considerably.

We are also convinced of the merits of the single service provider model, where companies can look to us to handle services to both shareholders and staff globally. We see great cross-selling opportunities in this area especially in the US where only 10%of the Employee Plan clients are also share registry clients.

We are able to draw on the significant knowledge and experience of our staff in eight countries who provide this service, and we believe that our market share, acquired through both organic growth and acquisition, places us in a commanding position to grow this business on a truly global scale.