Orient provides share ownership analysis, equity market intelligence, investor communication, proxy solicitation and shareholder management technology and is a subsidiary of Link Group – a leading third party financial record keeping company. The acquisitions expand Orient’s global footprint in key European markets such as Germany, Russia, Spain and Italy to complement its existing capabilities in the UK and France.

King Worldwide Investor Relations provides capital markets intelligence to over 150 of the world’s largest companies and their advisors. Specialising in global shareholder analysis, global bondholder analysis, institutional targeting and investor perception work, the company’s unique and innovative skills are commissioned for both investor relations programs and corporate transactions.

David Geddes, CEO of Orient Capital, said: “King Worldwide Investor Relations has an outstanding reputation for bespoke shareholder identification in capital markets where there is little or no transparency of ownership.  Orient Capital’s expertise is in markets where disclosure provisions permit detailed and highly accurate analysis of share registers.

“Our businesses are a perfect fit and the acquisition allows us to spread our entire investor relations product suite across Europe, the Middle East and Africa where transparency of ownership data varies greatly. Following the acquisition of King Worldwide Investor Relations, we are now able to service all markets.”

The acquisition of King Worldwide Investor Relations will expand Orient’s capabilities to offer services to identify and track their shareholders, target new investors and deliver investor management and communications solutions, together with websites and webcasting.

Fred Stone, CEO of King Worldwide Investor Relations, added: “Orient Capital’s proprietary technology will significantly enhance our processing capability and our clients will immediately benefit from the roll out of their unique web-based investor relations management platform, miraqle.  We are excited to be joining forces with a company with such an acknowledged reputation for excellence. With Orient Capital, we will be the premier provider of investor relations services, with market leading shareholder identification and analysis.”

Orient purchases 50% of D.F. King (Europe)

To expand its proxy solicitation capabilities in Europe, Orient has also acquired a 50% interest in the European business of D.F. King & Co., Inc. (D.F. King), one of the leading and most trusted providers of proxy and other stakeholder services throughout Europe and North America.

Founded in 1942, D. F. King is a leading full-service proxy solicitation firm for annual/special meetings of stockholders (AGMs/EGMs) and act as information agents for companies during takeover and merger offers and votes.

The 50% stake in the European business has been acquired from AST, who simultaneously announced today it has entered into an agreement to purchase the entire operating businesses of D.F. King.

AST joined forces with Link Group in 2008 to form a global share registry offering. Both companies became members of the Global Share Alliance in 2011 which provides enhanced global registry and financial services to international companies around the world.

“This is a significant development for our European investor relations business and also solidifies our trans-Atlantic relationship with AST.  Aligning ourselves with a company of the reputation and depth of experience in proxy solicitation as D.F. King, delivers real bench strength to our investor relations offering in Europe,” said Mr Geddes.

Also commenting on the transaction, John Bibas, Managing Director of D.F. King (Europe) said: “This transaction combines the complementary strengths and expertise of our respective businesses and will have a material positive impact on the European issuer and shareholder services industry.”

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Orient Capital, a global leader in share ownership analysis, equity market intelligence, investor communication and shareholder management technology has entered into a new partnership with FactSet Research Systems Inc. to offer the FactSet workstation as an extension of Orient Capital’s global suite of products and services for the corporate market.

Under the partnership, Orient Capital will offer seamless integration of its unique web-based investor relations management platform, miraqle, in the FactSet workstation.  For over 15 years, miraqle® has been empowering companies globally to manage their interaction with the capital markets with ease and efficiency.  The partnership will greatly enhance this capability, providing a wide range of critical data sets within a powerful workflow environment for research and analysis that has made FactSet the preferred partner of many of the world’s largest buy and sell-side institutions.

Orient Capital is a leader in delivering a complete range of services to support the corporate investor relations function.  With FactSet’s comprehensive content sets and industry-leading analytics, the combined offering will support several job functions across the corporation, including Investor Relations, Treasury, Strategic Planning, Marketing, Business Intelligence, Corporate Secretary and the C-suite.

“Orient Capital has had a long-standing relationship with FactSet, one of the world’s most respected financial information solutions providers.  This exciting development is a natural evolution of our commitment to servicing the needs of corporate executives,” said David Geddes, CEO of Orient Capital.  “The services combination that this partnership delivers is compelling; fulfilling the financial intelligence, analysis, and communication needs of corporate executives via a best of breed integrated solution.”

“Orient Capital is an industry leader for investor relations best practices and innovation,” said Phil Hadley, CEO, FactSet. “Integrating Orient Capital’s miraqle product with the FactSet workstation creates a unique tool to enhance the corporate market workflow.”

Features of the FactSet workstation:

• Real-time market data, news, and quotes from hundreds of global exchanges
• StreetAccount News, market and company news summaries
• Investment research and estimates from over 1,000 contributors on an entitled basis
• Events and transcripts, timely, accurate, and easily searchable
• M&A data on over 400,000 transactions involving both public and private companies
• Company financials detailing 20 years of comparative information on securities worldwide
• Global filings aggregated from a wide variety of industry sources
• Governance data for thousands of public companies
• Microsoft Office integration that improves the efficiency and accuracy of models and presentations
• Mobile access to global market and company intelligence via smart phone and tablet

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Forty seven superannuation funds representing over 4 million members have for the first time completed the successful lodgement of electronic reports to APRA as part of the new reporting standards outlined in the Stronger Super reforms.

Orient Capital, the technology solutions provider, worked collaboratively with superannuation administrators AAS and Link Super to meet the 28 October due date for APRA reporting, in what is believed to be the first successful electronic lodgement of fund reporting as part of SuperStream measures to automate the industry.

From the September quarter, APRA substantially increased the information required to be reported by superannuation funds while reducing the time funds have to report.

Paul Gardiner, Chief Operating Officer of Orient Capital, said: “What we have achieved using a complete electronic end to end solution for APRA reporting has not been achieved by any other superannuation administrator as far as we are aware. It is a testament to our staff, client focus and broad expertise of the different subsidiaries in Link Group.”

Prior to this electronic solution, reporting to APRA was a manual process involving spreadsheets. However, with the increased requirements and tighter deadlines of Stronger Super, manual processing of data to report to APRA would be an unsustainable solution.

“By using Orient Capital’s miraqle platform, we have been able to load and validate large amounts of complex accounting, investment and Trustee information and lodge via APRA’s electronic reporting portal. Funds now have access to all their data and can sign-off via the miraqle platform, making the process completely electronic,” said Mr Gardiner.

For this quarter, Orient Capital electronically reported for 47 superannuation funds, drawing information from three administration systems, three accounting systems, four custodians and multiple asset managers.

Key requirements from superannuation funds using electronic APRA reporting were usability, traceability and auditability.

Commenting on the electronic reporting experience as a client, Megan Bolton CEO of Kinetic Super said: “The provision of the miraqle APRA Reporting product by Orient Capital was a key factor in the successful submission to APRA of our reporting obligations under the new reporting standards.

“The co-ordinated import of data from the fund custodian and administrator into miraqle and the workflow built into the product enabled progress to be monitored at every stage and  the process to be completed on schedule, while the audit and traceability functionality built into miraqle provide the confidence that we are meeting APRA expectations in that area.”

Mr Gardiner said the group would continue to develop its electronic reporting solution to meet future obligations.

“We’ve worked very closely with the senior technical staff at APRA throughout this journey with a significant amount of end to end testing undertaken to ensure the best possible outcome for our clients,” he concluded.

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