We are currently in the process of renegotiating our Registrars fees and we are trying to get a feel for current fee levels in order to ascertain whether or not we are getting a good deal. We are an AIM listed company and the size of our register is approximately 5,000 shareholders (108 million shares in issue) and current fees are charged at a flat annual rate of c£17,500 all additional services provided by our registrars (SAYE scheme, Dividend etc) are charged as extra.
Could other companies share their registrar fee costs please?
I suggest you get at least one other registrar to quote on the same basis as your existing registrar. That is easier said than done, as the registrars tend to structure cost estimates in different ways. What is important to you? having a significant part of the cost fixed? paying for each constitiuent part and transaction; rolling in SAYE costs etc etc. Othwerwise you will simply find yourself comparing apples and pears. Of course, for the amount involved you need to determine how much time you want to spend on the issue.
Regarding the debate on sharing of pricing information, i am of the same view as the posting at 12:55 of 9 April. i would only add that one shouldnt feed pricing from one registrar back to another.
We have around 2k shareholders and our 3 year agreement from 2012 was £12500, increased year 2 and year 3 by the Average Weekly Earnings inflation rate (1.2% in March). Includes dividend and AGM attendance.
Re competition laws – the sharing of information between customers is not an issue, it is the sharing of pricing information by the service providers. The laws are there to protect the consumers of products and services and control the behaviour of the suppliers.
To answer the query from the FTSE 250 company below.
I hve in the past attended a number of internal briefings re: competition and anti-trust where we were advised that care needed to be taken when exchanging commerically sensitive information. The fact that we are unaware who the members of the network are means it is possible that this information would be received by competitors or indeed persons who could use the information to fix prices etc.
The OFT’s advice in this area provides the example of trade associations being ‘conduits’ to anti-competitive activities, for example by allowing members to exchange commercially sensitive information between themselves in breach of competition rules. The network group could so easily fall into the same category.
Whenever this item has come up on other networks, the members have been very careful not to provide specific numbers, limiting themselves to broad comments or price ranges at best.
I know some believe this is a very cautious approach but I believe it is worth noting.
We have fewer shareholders (C 2,000) and pay £14,500k fixed for 3 years. I put the contract out to tender and on the basis of a quote from another registrars (all amin stream) our existing registrars lowered their fees.
We are paying a similar amount. Everything else is extra.
I would be interested to know the legislation that prevents customers discussing a price paid for a service from undisclosed suppliers in such general terms as these? I understand the need for caution in the field of Competition Law but the spirit of the legislation is to prevent anti-competitive supplier behaviour to enable customers to get fair pricing (massive simplification, I realise) – genuinely, could the commentators provide further detail of how this online discussion is anti-competitive?
I would echo comment from other FTSE 100 response re price information and Capital Analyitics.
Seems to be in line with what we pay on a five year fixed agreement. We have 8,500 shareholders (600m+ shares in issue, FTSE250) and pay £40k per annum plus extras although dividend administration and share scheme administration is covered by our fixed fee.
We pay c£12,000 pa (fixed for 3 years) for a register with c500 shareholders, 121 million shares in issue. Dividend services are included in the fee. Registrar fees are dependent on a number of factors, for example account actitivites and movements. So this may not be a like-for-like comparison. If you have not got a quote from another registrar, I’d recommend you do so.
Care! Swapping price information about registrars’ fees is anti-competitive and could attract penalties.
I suggest you contact agents who know about market rates from participation in open tenders e.g. Capital Analytics or that you approach the other two registrars of the big three and ask them for a quote on a “no names” basis.