Computershare Dives As Qantas Moves Register
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday February 1, 2002
Computershare's recent run of woes continued yesterday after the share registry company lost major customer Qantas to rival ASX Perpetual Registrars.
Qantas told the Australian Stock Exchange during the lunch break it would move its 160,000 shareholdings from Computer-share to ASX Perpetual from February 25.
The announcement sent Computershare's share price tumbling 30c to $3.19. It recovered during the afternoon to close down 11c at $3.38.
Analysts said the loss of Qantas would not affect Computershare's bottom line, but would increase negative sentiment towards the company.
Computershare, which holds 70 per cent of the share registry market, has fallen out of favour with the market since issuing a shock profit warning in January, just two months after raising $150 million through an issue of reset preference shares.
Analysts have since dramatically cut their recommendations.
``Losing one account isn't particularly meaningful for a company which has 68 million shareholding accounts globally," said one analyst.
It is believed Qantas approached ASX Perpetual last month, about two months after Computershare mistakenly overstated the foreign ownership stake in Qantas by 4 per cent.
``A key issue for us is service," said Qantas company secretary Brett Johnson.
``ASX Perpetual has a terrific track record and we believe that it will deliver the level of service we seek and, more importantly, the level of service we demand for our shareholders."
ASX Perpetual completed its new share registry system called OSCAR at the end of last year. Before that it had paid Computershare $10 million a year to use its system.
Another analyst said competition between the two would increase.
``Computershare has always argued that because it is a global firm, multinationals like Qantas would be compelled to use it. Qantas is now saying we don't need a global registry."
But ASX Perpetual managing director John McMurtrie said the company would not start a price war to win more customers. ``We haven't gone in and made some cheap offer. We don't believe this is the way to go. This business is all about service."
Meanwhile, Computershare was yesterday forced to send a letter to Woolworths shareholders apologising for the delay in the despatch of the December end-of-month statement.
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald