Equiniti

Equiniti: ownership, payments and technology services for the corporate lifecycle

Equiniti, which operates under the EQ brand, presents itself as a trusted advisor for companies that need to understand and manage their shareholder base throughout the key milestones of their lifecycle. Its activity is organized into business units covering transfer agent services, employee plans, proxy services, private company services, and public and investor relations.

Services for public companies

The firm offers a set of services aimed at publicly traded companies. These include transfer agent and registrar services, dividend disbursement and reinvestment, tax operations and tokenization. It also includes solutions for share plans, such as long-term incentive plans, employee stock purchase plans and financial reporting under ASC 718.

In the area of corporate actions, EQ manages exchange agent, paying agent, depository agent and escrow agent services, as well as global solutions for such operations. Added to this are corporate trust services, with debt trusteeship and escrow, and asset recovery services, which cover abandoned property, post-merger cleanup, ownership location programs and lost shareholder searches.

Governance, proxy and ownership intelligence

The company provides corporate governance services, compensation advisory services and corporate proxy services. In the latter field, these include activist defense and analytics, annual and special meeting proxy solicitation, and contested proxy solicitation. The ownership intelligence unit includes capital markets consulting, regulatory compliance certification, credit markets intelligence and tax audit studies. It also acts as information agent in tender offers, Dutch auctions, rights offerings and debt-related services, as well as communications services.

Solutions for private companies and mutual funds

For private companies, EQ offers cap table and equity plan management, along with preparing for exit services, SPAC, direct listing and Regulation A+ services, as well as communications. In the mutual fund segment, the firm presents itself as a provider of proxy solicitation services in the United States for more than 25 years, with advisory services for activists, annual and special meetings, proxy solicitations, contested solicitations, information agent for rights offerings and orphan account solutions.

Scale and presence

According to the company's own data, EQ serves more than 12,000 clients, representing 35% of the S&P 500 and 49% of the UK FTSE 100, with more than 20 million shareholders and employees across 19 markets. The company also reports that it has been recognized as one of the top employers in the United States.

Brands and platforms

Among the group's brands are D.F. King and Notified. The company has launched DealTrax™, a digital platform for corporate actions and M&A events, and markets EquiTrax™ as a flexible solution for share plans. It also announces the acquisition of Equiniti by Bullish from Siris in a $4.2 billion transaction, aimed at creating a global transfer agent for tokenized securities.