NEWS | Preparing for 2010 - 31.03.10
It is now five months since David Venus & Company became part of the Equiniti Group, but we are already seeing the positive benefits of being part of the team. Our acquisition has been received well by existing clients and this has been echoed by our contacts with Equiniti clients. All can see the synergies that the tie up brings and the opportunities for accessing the range of company secretarial services that we offer.
We have been impressed by the professionalism of the Equiniti team, particularly the relationship directors and managers. We are working closely with them to ensure that what we do is known by clients.
Susan Wallace, one of our directors, has also been liaising closely with the Equiniti employment share team, particularly in relation to making available to clients our services for establishing approved and unapproved share schemes.
We have already placed staff on secondment with two of Equiniti's FTSE100 clients. Martha Bruce, Director, who arranged these placements believes this is a valuable service. "We have qualified and trained Chartered Secretaries available on short term secondment to cover sickness, staff shortage, peak work loads or the period between one staff member leaving and another joining. Company secretarial teams tend to be tightly resourced so the loss of one member for a few weeks or months can make it hard for a team to deal with routine compliance or ad hoc corporate actions. We know that clients value having our experienced colleagues available to step in and contribute immediately to ensure the work gets done."
We are seeing an increasing readiness for companies to outsource aspects of company secretarial compliance and we expect this trend to continue during 2010. We already act for many clients who recognise the benefits of outsourcing part of the company secretarial function; this might be routine compliance such as maintenance of their dedicated statutory database or ad hoc projects such as amendments to articles of association or dissolution of dormant companies where there is not the in-house resource available to complete these one-off tasks. Susan has seen the growth in outsourcing. "Where a company is fully listed we tend to lend support to the company secretarial team by handling part of the routine compliance work or by assisting the team with projects from time to time. Some AIM companies do not have a dedicated resource and often the finance director doubles up as the company secretary. This can place great pressures on his or her time commitment and they are very happy to outsource the company secretarial work to us. In this way the in-house company secretary can enjoy the backing and expertise provided by our large professional team."
2010 will see continued 'bedding down' of the new Companies Act provisions. Many companies still have work to do to bring both their plc and subsidiary articles up to date and to file notice of director's service addresses or single alternative inspection locations.
Our links with the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators will remain close and we will continue to write the monthly Q & A section in the Chartered Secretary magazine and provide the popular ICSA seminars on the role of the company secretary. We are proud of our reputation for supplying technical support and assistance to fellow professional and various of our team will continue to write and edit several established titles published by the ICSA, Butterworths and Bloomsbury Professional.
This email has been written to update you on progress to date. It is our intention to provide periodic updates and alerts by email to clients with the aim of providing practical advice on appropriate aspects of company secretarial practice. If you think any of your colleagues might benefit from receiving these, please ask them to email their details to info@davidvenus.com so that we can add them to our database.
We hope to have the opportunity of meeting you during the course of 2010. In the meantime, if you would like to have a chat about how we might help you please give one of our directors (David, Martha, Susan or Doug Armour) a ring on 01372 465330. We would be more than happy to meet up, whether or not you have any immediate need of our services.
