Share registry firm grabs Canada asset

Share registry company Computershare has acquired Canada's Olympia Corporate and Shareholder Services and Assets for about $44 million.

Computershare bought a string of share registry companies in recent years to boost its international revenue, which accounts for about 76 per cent of total income. Olympia has 650 clients, including 339 publicly listed companies.

Darren Murphy, head of treasury and investor relations, said the transaction was a small "bolt on" acquisition and "minuscule" compared with the large North American purchase in 2011.

"This type of transaction is a genuine bolt on that typically comes with significant synergies that we can extract," he said. "We can take all the information off their systems and put it on ours, consolidate IT, personnel and housing costs."

Computershare last year doubled its North American presence by spending $550 million to buy Bank of New York Mellon's share-owner services division.

Mr Murphy said there was little opportunity for Computershare to make further large scale acquisitions given its market share.

"We generally come up against competition hurdle when it comes to acquisitions," he said.