ELLWOOD It has always been challenging to get communication through to underlying noteholders, especially where notes are held through nominee companies in Austraclear. If corporate actions, call dates or any sort of communication goes to a nominee company the issuer does not have certainty the communication or notice is being received by the underlying noteholder.

It could be beneficial to have an investor-communications portal where investors could use their ISIN number, log in and create their own portfolio watchlist and reporting platform. If anything happens, or the trustee wants to communicate something regarding a specific note, the information is uploaded and an alert pops up on the investor screen or an email is automatically sent.

CAMILLERI For a big global bank, when an issuer sends a notice it normally gets binned unless it requires a vote. They are trying to work ‘efficiently’ rather than reading every document that comes through to determine who they need to send it to. It may be hard to change these processes because it requires negotiation with all the banks about workplace practices.

This issue really became prevalent in 2006-7 when issuers were trying to contact investors about call dates and other aspects. What we proposed back then was along the lines of a central repository or portal where investors create a profile and then nominate the deals they want to monitor.

We identified several challenges. Not all issuers wanted to be transparent, or they only wanted to provide communications to the investors involved in the deal. Validating holdings became a separate issue – how can we prove we own the note when it was registered in J.P. Morgan’s name, as a nominee, for example?

Getting through this minefield became problematic when we started to explore it. Where we ended up was all issuers should just list their deals, which then created another minefield about continuous disclosure.

CAMILLERI It is hard to say, but I have always been an advocate for it. My motivation has always been to build deeper markets in Australia and improve the liquidity environment. To do this, we need to attract a lot of new investors, including from offshore.

Receiving communication and messaging is at the top of the list for most investors. If it is not available, they are reluctant to come to our market and we end up not achieving the bigger ecosystem goals.

We must find a way for issuers to feel confident in their messaging – when they put out a public notice about a transaction, they are confident it will not be taken the wrong way. Investors should be confident they can access the information they need easily and seamlessly.