The Asia Pacific Region comprises Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

AUSTRALIA

Investor Services
Background

Computershare acquired its Australia investor services business in 1997, at which point our market share was approximately 50%. Since then, we have amassed growth in our business, organically, and by acquisition. Today, Computershare manages 65% of the investor services equities market, and a further 4% of the market is serviced by our bureau service.

Our success to date has been based on pricing, pro-activity, quality services, employee expertise, and innovative technology - fundamentals that underpin our business.

Performance this Year

Initial public offerings were limited, however, takeover activity was steady with Computershare handling the majority of these. Several important takeovers were won as a result of our global presence including Newmont's takeover of Normandy, and Singtel's takeover of Optus.

The acquisition of BT Registries was a key area of growth during the year. The acquisition added approximately one million securityholder accounts, including equity, fixed interest, and rental bond accounts. Since the acquisition of BT, over 98% of clients acquired signed contracts with Computershare for ongoing registry services and 70% of BT Registries staff were incorporated into the business to ensure continuity of relationship management to existing clients.

Computershare welcomed several new clients during the year, including Leighton Holdings and Macquarie Airports. With the acquisition of BT Registries, we are now the biggest fixed interest service provider in Australia, managing 100% of Australia's central borrowing authority businesses.

Whilst service-related issues in our Australian registry business did hamper our performance this year, these issues have now been addressed. Over the last few months there have been substantial changes to senior management including new appointments for contact centre and key operations roles. A change in the role of Relationship Managers (RMs) was also instigated, shifting away from an operational role to a more client liaison and sales role to include all products and services within the group. We are very confident that we now have a significantly strengthened management team in place and remain committed and determined to win major clients in Australia.

Products and Services

Products and services were continually enhanced during the year. Several significant product launches occurred, including the launch of the web-based product, Investor Centre, which allows investors to enquire and update their holding details maintained by Computershare.

Operating Efficiency Infrastructure

Infrastructure developments included the completion of the next stage of Computershare's workflow and Electronic Data Capture system, with infrastructure and software installed across all Australian offices. Workflow and Electronic Data Capture significantly improve processing accuracy, provide managers with more control over processing resources, and improve our ability to store and retrieve correspondence, resulting in better customer service. Another important infrastructure enhancement was the expansion and improvement of our internal intranet facility.

Employee Share Plans
Background

Computershare acquired RPC Plan Managers in April 2001 and the business continues to be the only provider of a combined share registry and plans outsource business, allowing us to provide the only fully outsourced 'names on register' plan management system.

Performance this Year

The business grew considerably during the year: Clients rose by 40%, employees managed grew by 223%, and funds under management grew by 81%. We now have 75,000 employee accounts from both Australia and New Zealand, with 58 outsourced clients in Australia and four outsourced clients in New Zealand.

Our recent wins of the plan management business of AMP and ANZ illustrate this shift. Further enhancements to plan management systems and services continued throughout the year, strengthening the quality of our products.

Work on our global share option system, COSMOS Options, continues. The system will allow high level centralised administration of global plans but will be flexible enough to cater for tax laws in each target country, significantly increasing our competitive advantage.

Document Services
Background

Computershare established its Document Services business (CDS) when it acquired the print and mail distribution operations of Ci Ltd in 2000.

Major clients in Australia include:

Performance this Year

As well as its vital role to service our client companies, CDS also offers commercial (non-registry) services. Despite the downturn in capital markets this year, which has affected our registry-related work, CDS has successfully grown the commercial side of its business.

CDS' Australian revenue contribution was $49.2 million representing an increase of 14% with an outstanding growth in EBITDA.

We remain optimistic that strong growth and profitability will continue in the CDS business through the expansion of our services and increased focus on operating efficiencies.

Analytics
Background

Computershare Analytics was launched as a new business in early 2001. This business specialises in share ownership analysis and related investor relations services.

Factors that have contributed to a growth in demand for share analysis services include:

• A local share market that experienced greater share price volatility
• Declining equity markets that caused takeover concerns for local companies
• A general perception that companies should understand their registers
• Increased trends toward greater disclosure
• An increase in professional communications with investors
• An increase in the trend towards greater transparency.

Our growth has been achieved as a result of increasing market awareness of our product as well as the development of additional products and services. Our core register analysis product has also been expanded to include multi-register analysis for dual listed companies such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

Performance this Year

Analytics services approximately 55% of the ASX Top 100 and has experienced growth of about 400% over the year. Exciting events include recent work for WMC, AMCOR, and Macquarie. System enhancements continued, in particular, we launched our new webbased global share ownership and contact management system IRtrack earlier in the year, which has been received well by our clients.

Technology Enhancements

Computershare Technology Service's Global Research and Development centre is based in Australia. The expansion of Computershare's Registry operations to over nine countries has resulted in the development of strategies aimed at providing global services to shareholders and issuers. The key to these strategies is twofold; to provide a registration system capable of operating across international boundaries, and to leverage off this information to provide value added services to our customers. The developments in Australia include internet functionality, our Cosmos suite of products including Investor, Company Billing, and Cosmos Options, SCRIP, ESPP, Workflow, Electronic Data Capture, and Document Storage.