STRATE is investigating new systems and services which can be provided on an electronic platform. To that purpose, STRATE has asked ADP Investor Communication Services to present on their product at STRATE’s offices. STRATE has asked the CSIG if any of its members would like to attend this presentation to provide comment. The presentation will be held on 3rd May 2006 at 11h00 at STRATE, 9 Fricker road, Illovo Boulevard, Illovo, Sandton.

Email your acceptance to Brian Balkind at STRATE at brianb@strate.co.za


Information on ADP product as follows:

ADP Investor Communications Service (ICS) (www.ics.adp.com) provides shareholder distribution services in North America, with about a 95% market share in the beneficial distribution market.  ADP electronically collects beneficial shareholder names and addresses in North America from over 600 banks and brokers in an automated fashion, then distributes whatever communications the companies choose to send to these shareholders, the bulk of which is proxy materials.  We print the ballots and combine them with the hard copy materials provided by the company.  Initially this was solely a hard copy service, but increasingly it is moving to electronic, with significant savings to issuers.

Most institutions now receive their proxy materials and ballots over our internet software, ProxyEdge.com, and then execute those votes back to ADP through that same software.  This results in savings to issuers who no longer need to print as many annual reports, proxies, etc., as well as postage.  The real savings come from retail users going electronic however.

Currently, about 10% (up sharply in the last few years) of retail users receive communications electronically, and vote back electronically as well.
However, as the majority of mailings go to retail shareholders, even 10% participation results in very significant printing and postage savings to issuers.

ADP ICS also offers a cross-border proxy voting service, with global custodians outsourcing proxy voting to ADP.  Institutions use our ProxyEdge.com software to vote.  We currently have about 80% market share in this space.  This is solely an electronic and institutional product at this time.

We also have initiatives in several countries ranging from electronic voting only (Japan and Germany) to retail voting with both paper and electronic (Netherlands), and are in discussions with several CSDs about introducing some form of these services in other markets, mainly in Asia. 

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