Continental Stock Transfer & Trust, the largest U.S. owned transfer agent, provides shareholder related recordkeeping services to 1,250 public and private companies and cross-border agent services to 100 global issuers. We spoke with Karri Van Dell, Vice President of Continental and the Director of Strategy and Business Development, to determine how Continental uses Audit Analytics to support business development, prospect for new clients, and perform competitive analyses.
Support business development.
As Karri describes, the wide array of public company data offered through Audit Analytics is leveraged to support business development. Utilizing Audit Analytics proprietary company profiles, it is easy to identify who the competitor is that is serving as a transfer agent, as well as clearly see pertinent relationships, such as with law firms and auditors.
“We know there is so much to gain within the transfer agent industry by using Audit Analytics data to build more effective relationships and promote the industry through partnerships.”
Inform pricing.
An additional benefit to using Audit Analytics data for transfer agents is the ability to accurately and quickly determine the volume of issuer shareholders to inform pricing. With Audit Analytics performing the time-consuming research, transfer agents have more time to spend supporting other aspects of their business and better serving their niche markets.
“It’s important [for transfer agents] to access data of volume in terms of shareholders in order to manage pricing. With the Audit Analytics transfer agent database, that shareholder information is highly accessible.”
Prospect for new clients.
Being able to prospect for new clients in an efficient manner is an important aspect of growth. With Audit Analytics, transfer agents have the ability to easily identify prospective opportunities by searching for issuers based on a variety of features, including by market, assets, revenue structure, and geographical information.
Discovering prospects based on specific issuer characteristics can also be done in real-time through the use of Audit Analytics automatic email alerts for significant events, such as mergers/acquisitions or private placements.
As Karri explains, having all the necessary information in one easy-to-use place saves time and saves research, which provides more time to manage leads and opportunities.
“Having access to the real-time, accurate, core data [provided by Audit Analytics] kicks off our prospecting opportunities and can lead to new business. The volume of information and the variety of how to use it is really extraordinary and provides an opportunity for us to grow.”
Competitive analysis.
In constantly changing markets, understanding competitors can better help transfer agents position themselves in the industry – particularly within tough competitive markets, such as IPOs and SPACs.
According to Karri, the repository of Audit Analytics data pulled from SEC filings and beyond provides accurate information that serves as a research tool to better position Continental to identify competitors across certain markets and reflect on their own client base.
“There’s been quite a bit of change in markets over the last five years, especially for transfer agents in the IPO market, and those are hard to track. But [Audit Analytics] can collectively grab all of that information, forming a valuable competitive analysis.”
For more information about Audit Analytics or this analysis, please contact us.
Interested in our content? Be sure to subscribe to receive our email notifications.