ComputerShare Performing Well Aside as Transfer Agent of GameStop (GME)

Australian stock transfer company Computershare shared its plan to expand across over twenty countries. The company is one among the prominent stock transfer agents and it manages the changes as well as ownership maintenance for stocks or investment funds within the companies.

For accounting, administration and other such services fall under the back office services managed by Computershare like transfer agents.

Along with thousands of companies, Computershare also works for GameStop (GME) as a transfer agent. Retail investors at GME are known to the fact the company is securing their shares. Many shareholders of GameStop went on to register their shares using the Direct Registration System (DRS), treating it as a potential way to provide safeguard to their shares from short sellers.

Retail holders of GME stocks have considered this as an attractive move. When the investors hold their own GME shares using DRS, it makes them limit their payment for order flow. Also for the reduction in number of shares it is available to make the loan out by brokerage firms for short sellers.

Theoretically if the retail investors using DRS are enough to transfer their shares towards a transfer agent like ComputerShare, then the availability of shares is subject to decrease. This makes it relatively tougher for short sellers to get open for new short positions.

GameStop shareholders have started a direct registration movement and the company has reported the number of registered shares on a quarterly basis with its transfer agent. In the case with GME shares, ComputerShare is responsible for the ongoing campaign.

Company Dominating the Market

Computershare was founded in 1978 and by that time it was serving about 16,000 companies within the publicly trading domain to serve them as financial record keeper globally.

The company has vast activities related to the issuer services and it is evident from its overall revenue where it contributes for the biggest chunk of about 38%. Meanwhile mortgage services accounts for a significant portion of the remainder along with employer share plans and corporate trust services.

More specifically, about 60% of overall revenue generated through the company’s operations within the United States. The company is also known to be listed on prominent trading markets like the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). It has been trading there since 1994 and its ticker is CPU. By the time of writing, the company has a valuation of about 9.6 billion USD.

For context, US stock exchanges do not facilitate the trading of Computershare. This makes the traders within the US interested in buying the shares of stock transfer companies to use over–the-counter (OTC) markets. Usually the shares were purchased as American Depository Receipts (ADRs).