Qantas Takes Its Business To Asx
The Age
Friday February 1, 2002
SYDNEY
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 it would move its 160,000 shareholders from Computershare to ASX Perpetual from February 25.
The announcement sent the Computershare share price tumbling 16 cents to $3.19. Itrecovered during the afternoon to close down 11 cents at $3.38. Analysts said the loss of Qantas would not affect Computershare's bottom line but would increase negative sentiment about the company.
The company, 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 downgraded their recommendations.
``Losing one account isn't particularly meaningful for a company which has 68 million shareholding accounts globally," said an analyst, who preferred not to be named.
``It obviously adds to negative sentiment ... if it happened at any other time, it wouldn't have been meaningful."
It is believed Qantas approached ASX Perpetual last month to switch its share register, 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 then, it had paid Computershare $10 million a year to use its system.
Meanwhile, Computershare was yesterday forced to send a letter to Woolworths shareholders apologising for the delay in the dispatch of the December end-of-month statement.
© 2002 The Age