| Home > Software Developers > ADP Wholesale Distribution Services > Press Releases |
| |
 |
| |
| ADP Wholesale Distribution Services |
| |
ADP, TSE and JSDA Form JV to Provide Electronic Proxy Voting in Japan |
| |
New York, NY – July 6, 2004 – ADP Investor Communication Services (ADP ICS), a division of Automatic Data Processing’s (NYSE: ADP) Brokerage Services Group, the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) and the Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA) have formed a joint venture (JV) company in Japan to provide an electronic proxy voting platform, which handles both Japanese and English languages. The platform is based on ADP’s web voting platform ProxyEdge® Lite (PE Lite), modified to fit the unique needs of the Japanese market. The JV will offer issuer-supported proxy voting to institutional investors in Japan, while fully integrating ADP’s existing global service for non-Japanese investors into the new process.
The JV has appointed Mr. Yutaka Kawajiri as President and CEO of the new company. Mr. Kawajiri comes to the JV with years of experience in banking and custody operations with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. “I am very excited at this opportunity to participate in a project that will provide an efficient, electronic infrastructure for proxy voting in Japan, and lay the foundations for a stronger and more transparent system of corporate governance here as well.”
“This is a tremendous step forward for corporate governance and efficient proxy voting in one of the world’s most difficult voting markets” said Bruce A. Babcock, President, ADP ICS Europe and Asia, who helped negotiate the agreement and will serve on the board of the new company. “This fully electronic solution will remove a huge amount of paperwork from the existing process in Japan, enabling Japanese and international investors to receive their Japanese ballots in seconds rather than days, and return the votes substantially closer to the actual meeting date than is possible today. We expect this process to provide investors close to 11 days to make more informed voting decisions in the crucial June meeting season, up from the existing 3-4 days.”
The Japanese proxy voting season is highly concentrated in the last two weeks of June, with over 2500 listed companies holding meetings in that period. Issuers routinely release paper voting materials just 14 days prior to their late June meeting dates, through the Japanese postal system. This causes serious backlogs in delivery of materials and processing of outgoing ballots which, coupled with shortened deadlines to allow bank processing of returning ballots, leaves investors with little or no time to properly analyse the materials and make informed voting decisions. This narrow window is even tighter for foreign investors.
The new process will enable users of the platform to view meeting materials and receive ballots over the web, in Japanese or English, within minutes of the materials being officially released by participating issuers. The JV will also be returning votes electronically directly to the issuer’s agents, enabling the shortening of vote cut-off times to the day before the meeting, rather than 3-4 days today. The JV also plans to provide meeting results for participating issuers.
“In all our contacts with institutional investors, the cumbersome proxy voting system was one area that came up repeatedly as a problem area”, said Mr. Uranishi of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “We have been proud to participate actively in this initiative. The new voting process being introduced by the JV will greatly improve communication between issuers and their domestic and international shareholders, strengthening the corporate governance system and further enhancing the competitiveness of the TSE among international capital markets.”
The JV is scheduled to launch operations later this year, starting with companies holding meetings in March 2005, in time for the crucial June season next year.
|
| |
|
|
