The market seems in general agreement that the state of many balance sheets, as well as the recent success of HSBC’s mammoth Rights Offer, will encourage a further round of comparable cash raisings by UK public companies.

While 2008 saw a total of 15 Rights Offers in the UK, 13 have already taken place this year, so we expect many more to come. Yet, with underwriters having to take on an average 75% of the shares in 10% of all offerings since 2002, this risk comes with an increase in related broking advisory business. Looking back on such offerings over the past seven years that risk goes up considerably on some of the smaller, sub-£350 million rights issues.

As a proxy solicitor with deep experience in the analysis of UK share registers and the solicitation of holders (either for AGM/EGM votes or tenders), Georgeson is ideally suited to act as a quasi-internal resource to issuers and their advisors. So, you may seek to lower risk by adding Georgeson's expertise and capacity to reach out to a wide community of retail and institutional investors, both in the UK and globally. This can include:

>    the coordination of actual subscription instructions with institutional back offices (to complement discussions with portfolio managers, as undertaken by the company in question or yourselves);

>    confirming the receipt of such instructions with the company’s registrars (and determining as-yet unaccepted accounts for reactivation);

>    tying together all data in regular updates, providing the corporate broking team with a succinct status report. Georgeson's outreach can gain valuable intelligence while there is still time to address key issues with investors.

Georgeson has exhibited the viability of a division of labour of various corporate actions and in the current climate our services can augment downsized broking teams and cut vendor services, at a controllable cost. This can be done either on a case-by-case basis, or within the framework of an ongoing agreement. Georgeson has the added benefit of being able to access Computershare's back office expertise in handling half of all rights issues since October 2006, including six of the top ten rights issues during that period.

To find out more, please contact Will King, UK Corporate Advisory, Georgeson.