Much has been asked of staff this year and many have sacrificed life at home to travel overseas. Our employees are our real strength by making it their business to seek out and develop our businesses to meet our strategic and tactical objectives. Our sincere thanks go to all staff and management of the company.

Your main Australian competitor has indicated that they will be processing companies on their new system from 1st January 2002. What does this mean for Computershare?
We happily compete in all markets throughout the world, and Australia is no different. For many years the predominant share registry system used by the major players in Australia was ours. As a consequence the differential was focussed only on service quality and we believe that even then we held our corner well. The transition to offer competition based on technology as well as service is something we are very much looking forward to.

The depth and breadth of our service offering and our global positioning are all key elements of difference. We believe that companies in Australia will look to ensure that the critical service to their shareholders is based on robust technology that is tried, tested, reliable and innovative.

Have there been any changes in the membership of the Board?
Three changes have been made this year. Mark Elliott, the group’s Chief Legal Counsel, was appointed to a casual vacancy on the Board on 5 January 2001.

John Shergold, who joined the board in 1996, has advised that his workload in other areas does not allow him the time required to fulfil his role with the company and its international expansion. He therefore tendered his resignation in May of this year. John was Chairman of the Audit Committee and contributed significantly to the strategic development of the company. We thank him sincerely for his contribution during his term as a director.

With effect from 30 September 2001, Tony Wales will relinquish his executive responsibilities for the Computershare Limited group. Tony will remain on the Board of Computershare Limited as a Non Executive Director.

In this capacity,he will chair the group’s Risk and Audit Committee. The charter of this committee includes an oversight role on acquisitions.

Tony Wales has been involved with Computershare since 1981 and has been instrumental in much of the strategic expansion of Computershare. We acknowledge the significant personal effort Tony had made to the success of the Computershare group and the contribution he has made in sourcing, evaluating and integrating many of the business acquisitions. As a direct consequence Tony has spent significant periods of time away from his family.

We expect the change in Tony’s role to be handled smoothly with Mr Darryl Corney, Chief Financial Officer, assuming all Tony’s executive responsibilities. For the past 3 years Mr Wales and Mr Corney have worked closely together in guiding the finance function at Computershare Limited.

Alexander (Sandy) Stuart Murdoch
CHAIRMAN

Christopher John Morris
Managing Director and CEO