announcement, page-20

adrs Hot rod,
Just a few words on ADRs.
As an ADR holder you are not on the company’s register of shareholders with name and size of holding.
Instead your holdings are registered in the ‘Street name’ (US Broker – say E*Trade) with the Custodians (in this case ANZ).

This is turn can have some negatives associated with it.

Annual report
– The company will forward annual report for ADR holders to an agent in US. This agent in turn will forward same to ADR holders. In my experience this process is slow and delayed. For ADR holders with an address in Oz the material is often forwarded as 2nd class mail and turn up after the AGM and the close off date for voting.

Voting
– If you can vote your ADR holding it will most likely be at ‘Proxy’, however to do that you need a control number, which is printed on the material forwarded – you guessed it - with the annual report.

SPP
– In Australia companies often raise capital by way of an SPP (max $5K). In OZ this can be done without a full blown prospectus. This is not the case in USA.

Options
- From time to time some companies may reward shareholders with free share options. Maybe this can also be done for ADRs, but is a nightmare as the company do not have a list with the names of ADR holders. Brisbane biotech company Progen (PGL:ASX – PGLAF:NASDAQ) is going through this process with a lot of pain and waste of management time. Many PGLO May 05 options never found their final home and will not be exercised. US brokers can not accommodate these options (which are known as warrants in USA) in client’s accounts as they are not listed on the US market.

Poke around here for ADR details: http://www.adrbny.com/dr_profile.jsp?cusip=757370101