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Australian-based Computershare is to take full control of Hong Kong's largest share registrar, Central Registration Hong Kong.

Computershare, which presently holds 50 per cent of the registrar, is to acquire the entire outstanding stake from a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings for A$40 million (about HK$163.64 million).

Central Registration executive chairman Julian Leiper declined to disclose what ratio to the registrar's earnings the price represented, but said according to transactions in recent years, the group 'usually paid something in the region of five to 11 times earnings'.

In the past four years, Computershare, which is listed in Australia with a market capitalisation of more than A$4 billion, has aggressively acquired share registration businesses in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Ireland, the United States and Canada.

Mr Leiper rejected speculation the buy-out might indicate disagreement between Computershare and HSBC.

'We always have a good relationship with HSBC . . . the bank will continue to use our share registration service,' he said.

Mike Scales, an HSBC representative on the Central Registration board, said: 'It is appropriate that Computershare, whose core expertise is running share registration businesses, should take Central Registration forward'.

Mr Leiper, who is also the head of Computershare's European operation, said the takeover of the SAR registrar was part of the group's plan to form a global network of share registration business.

'Share registrations have been run as a domestic business everywhere around the globe but we have created an international business from that and have gained an economy of scale to run the business,' Mr Leiper said.

After recent acquisitions, Computershare maintains more than 61 million shareholder accounts worldwide.

After the acquisition, Computershare would invest in Central Registration in anticipation of a scripless market in Hong Kong, Mr Leiper said.

'There is a lot of inefficiency still in the way that shares are held. Papers are floating around the market place and the consequences of that are inefficient in the modern world,' he said.

'Two years from now, the Hong Kong market will be dematerialised, which clearly holds some potential risk for share registrars.'

Central Registration, which prints share certificates, was blamed during the certificate-duplication fiasco of the MTR Corp's initial public offering in October.

The share registrar, which was responsible for printing the MTR share certificates, issued 1,508 invalid duplicates to investors.

Mr Leiper said the share registrar would introduce more online services in the future, including an Internet service giving shareholders direct access to information relating to shareholding, dividend history and tax.

Computershare would also align Central Registration with other share registration centres in key financial markets, allowing cross-border services, Mr Leiper said.



Australians take over SAR share registrar in $163m stake buy