International Shareholder Communications Programme

Given today's environment, many shareholders expect corporations to communicate general meeting information directly to shareholders and to establish voting controls and procedures above and beyond what is required. Broadridge is answering this increased demand for corporations to ensure a controlled, direct, efficient, interactive and transparent communication process with shareholders by offering a specialized proxy processing service directly to corporations or their agent.

The process includes distribution of the general meeting announcement to shareholders, and vote collection, processing and reporting via the custodian pipeline. Broadridge has enhanced the proven infrastructure of the North American Broadridge proxy process for the international corporate community. This service, known as the International Shareholder Communications Programme, is offered to any corporation issuing shares outside Canada and the United States. The programme gives real-time access to a large number of institutional and high-net worth shareholders and potential investors worldwide.

Service Description

• Accurate, electronic and timely distribution of the detailed and complete convocation to any general meeting, as provided by the corporate client to the right and ultimate shareholder contacts linked to our system
  
  
• Display of direct and electronic access to corporate information (e.g., annual report, chairman’s letter, audio/video presentations) via multiple links to corporate client’s website or materials hosted by our system
  
  
• Collection of votes and delivery to the sub-custodians for the authentication of share positions (e.g., share blocking, registration) and execution of vote instructions
  
  
• Electronic alert to all shareholders of un-voted accounts prior to the general meeting deadline
  
  
• Email and/or telephone contact to the largest shareholders having failed to report votes prior to the meeting deadline
  
  
• Reporting of voting account details to corporate client (daily and prior to the vote deadline date) when instructions are submitted to the sub-custodians
  
  
• Communication of general meeting results and post-general meeting corporate news and financial statements as provided by the corporate client
  
  
• Notification to the investment community that the aforementioned transactions completed via our programme are paid by the corporate client and free of charge to the shareholders
  
  
• Compilation and reporting of exclusive statistical data
  
  

Operating Platform

• More than 3,300 institutions and high-net worth investors located in more than 50 countries and representing over 50,000 funds/accounts are linked to Broadridge's electronic front-end ProxyEdge® suite of products and voting systems
  
  
• Secure daily download from 30 banks and brokers, global custodians of ultimate shareholders' accounts, for electronic account and share position collection and timely entitlement calculations
  
  
• Relationship with more than 200 sub-custodians/local representatives for vote execution in over 90 countries
  
  
• All transactions supported by Broadridge's mainframe, one of the world's largest privately-owned computer systems, with state-of-the-art disaster recovery capabilities and subject to a full audit trail (multiple internal and external audit layers)
  
  

Benefits to Corporate Clients

• Maintain full integrity of the general meeting and agenda details
  
  
• Emphasize corporate news and financial statements prior to general meeting date
  
  
• Improve timeliness of the general meeting communication, increase voting decision period for shareholders and reduce incidences of late voting
  
  
• Monitor voting prior to general meeting deadline date and prevent an oversight by the largest shareholders and/or sub-custodians that could result in the failure of voting
  
  
• Emphasize general meeting results and post-general meeting corporate news and financial statements
  
  
• Maximize first-class treatment of shareholders, promote corporate image and increase meeting participation
  
  
• Achieve greater corporate transparency and enhance investor communications
  
  
• Eliminate potential risks to the general meeting due to mis/non-communications and reduce shareholders' proxy processing costs
  
  
• Be recognized for being proactive and adhering to the highest corporate governance standards
  
  
• Improve information flow pertinent to investment decisions
  
  
• Incorporate exclusive statistical data in internal reporting (e.g., shareholder base analysis) and optimize investor relationship management
  
  

Broadridge Investor Communication Services is the leader in shareholder communications worldwide. With this tradition as our foundation, Broadridge continues to be the investor communication resource to public corporations, investment funds, brokers and banks. For more information about Broadridge's International Shareholder Communications Programme, please contact Hakan Benito Sapmaz at +1 (631) 374-1878.