Equiniti ezine | October 2011

EZINE

Click here to read these stories on the Equiniti website

> OCTOBER 2011 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: WEBCAST We share seven steps to communicating your employee share plan successfully BT GROUP RAISES ÂŁ82,000 FOR SHAREGIFT Shareholder dealing programme delivers WHO IS REALLY BUYING YOUR SHARES? The s808 Investor Analytics service CARBON TRUST AWARD Equiniti hits emission targets

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WEBCAST

Jade Jordan, Design Manager at Equiniti, shares seven vital steps to communicating your employee share plan successfully

WEBCAST: SHARE PLAN COMMUNICATION

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SHAREGIFT

BT Group’s shareholders donated more than £82,000 to charity through a recent Equiniti share dealing programme.

Francis O’Mahony of BT explains.

BT GROUP DELIGHT AT SHAREHOLDER DONATIONS Following strategic planning sessions and in depth discussions, BT agreed that Equiniti should manage a share dealing programme for its shareholders and provide them with the opportunity of donating the proceeds to charity.

Everyone agreed that it was the right thing to do, particularly for those shareholders with a small number of shares.

As with many other PLCs, the initiative was organised by Equiniti in partnership with ShareGift, the share donation charity www.sharegift.org What was truly surprising was the amount that was raised – far exceeding expectations.

Over 200 shareholders (including those with

a relatively large shareholding) donated a total in excess of £82,000 – an extremely generous amount given the current economic climate. One shareholder even donated shares to the value of £7,800.

“We were surprised and delighted,” says Francis O’Mahony, Head of Employee Share Plans and Share Registration at BT. “It was an amazing total. In line with their normal procedures, Equiniti double checked with each shareholder who had been particularly generous with their donation. We all wanted to be absolutely certain that the shareholder’s instructions were correct – and, in every case, they were.”

The programme, which ran from April to June (and instructions were still being received

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BT Shareholder donations

TOTAL DONATED

£82,000 BY

200

SHAREHOLDERS from shareholders in August), was targeted at around 95% of BT’s shareholders.

Equiniti wrote to each shareholder, offering them a simple, convenient, cost effective and reputable postal service should they wish to sell their shareholding, donate it to charity, or purchase more shares.

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SHAREGIFT Equiniti’s share dealing programme is bespoke and designed specifically for each client and their shareholders. It is seen to deliver best practice in terms of shareholder governance, as well as providing an appealing CSR angle.

Claire Mackintosh, Chief Executive of ShareGift, said:

Equiniti has operated successful programmes for a significant number of their FTSE 100 and 250 clients.

“We’re very pleased at how Equiniti managed the programme,” Francis adds. “The process worked very well and the response from shareholders was very positive. We’ve achieved what we wanted to do and we’ve excelled in terms of charitable donations.”

IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION: To find out about share dealing programmes please contact your relationship manager.

BT can applaud its vision in seeing the possibilities of ShareGift from the start. We have been regularly deployed in BT shareholder communications initiatives, helping the company to clear up its share register by offering its shareholders a free service to dispose of their small holdings in a charitable way.

“It is also marvellous to see some shareholders triggered by this neutral approach to make larger donations of shares. The value of BT share donations to ShareGift is now more than £1.5 million, with significant savings in the cost of shareholder communications. Win win for everyone!

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INVESTOR CONTINUED ANALYTICS ON > PAGE 5 4

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INVESTOR ANALYTICS

Immediate information on who is trading your shares is available through Equiniti. Simon McGregor, Managing Director, Investor Analytics explains all

INVALUABLE SHARE DATA – IN REAL TIME Want to know immediately who is really buying and selling shares in your organisation? Want to see, in real time, who is behind proxy votes for your AGM resolutions, and which way they’re voting? Want to ensure that the management of your s808 register complies with the Companies Act?

The Investor Analytics service from Equiniti ticks all three of these boxes.

“To analyse who is buying and selling shares in your organisation, you need to take a cut of the share register and compare it to a previous cut,” explains Simon McGregor, Managing Director of Investor Analytics at Equiniti. “You then start the analysis process, which usually involves issuing an s793 to find out the real identities behind the trades.

If you’re a broker, you will come to Equiniti to request the first cut, come to us again to request the second cut, then do the analysis, then issue the notice, then update the database, then generate the report. All of this means delay, delay, delay.

“Because we’re the registrar, we’re the first recipient of any settled trades,” he adds.

“We’ve therefore designed our systems so that they pick up these trades on settlement

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The client sees in real time who is actually voting and how they are voting.

Until now, you’d have to wait until after the event to analyse that data and analyse them immediately – and we give our clients direct access to this information as it happens. There is no delay.”

One of the other big benefits of the service is the tracking of proxy votes in that tense time leading up to a company AGM. “We have our system so that these proxy votes are analysed automatically as they come in against the underlying disclosure database,” says Simon. “The client sees in real time who CONTINUED ON PAGE 65

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INVESTOR ANALYTICS

is actually voting and how they are voting.

Until now, you’d have to wait until after the event to analyse that data – here it happens immediately.”

There’s also the compliance issue.

Companies who keep their s808 register with Equiniti as their registered SAIL (Single Authorised Inspection Location) will be fully compliant with the Companies Act. Your register can be inspected by third parties and the general public at Equiniti’s purposebuilt facilities.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION: To find out more about the s808 service and other benefits Equiniti Investor Analytics offer, please contact Simon McGregor on 0207 469 1880 or simon.mcgregor@equiniti.com CLICK HERE TO READ THIS STORY ON THE EQUINITI WEBSITE

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CARBON TRUST STANDARD

A concerted drive to reduce carbon emissions at Equiniti is paying dividends. Tim Sonnex, Head of Group Property Services, hails a significant milestone

EQUINITI GAINS CARBON TRUST STANDARD AWARD Equiniti is delighted to announce that we have been awarded the Carbon Trust Standard. This leading certification scheme shows that we have taken significant action on climate change by reducing our carbon emissions by 6% over the past three years.

Some of the projects that have enabled us to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard include: ■■ Increased staff awareness on carbon reduction issues – for example, ensuring PCs and monitors are turned off at the end of the day.

■■ Replacement of the cooling system in our main print room with an energy-efficient ‘free cooling’ system.

■■ Changing

run times on air conditioning systems, so that buildings are heated and cooled when in use.

The Carbon Trust Standard requires us to keep reducing our carbon emissions and to re-certify every two years. This means we will continue our efforts, in partnership with Reliance Facilities Management, and keep working to reduce our impact on the environment.

We have made some important steps on our ‘carbon journey’, but more initiatives are planned and, by continuing with this programme, we will be able to include Xafinity in the recertification in 2012.

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IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION: If you would like to find out more about our drive to reduce carbon emissions, please contact your relationship manager CONTINUED ON PAGE 7