`India is a five-year plan for us`

Q&A: V Laxmikanth, MD, Broadridge India

Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc, a spin-off from Automatic Data Processing Inc (ADP), is bullish on the Indian market for its product ProxyEdge, a suite of electronic voting services that helps simplify the management of institutional proxies.

Proxy Edge allows to manage, track, reconcile and report an organisation’s proxy voting through electronic delivery of ballots, online voting, and integrated reporting and record keeping.

The NYSE-listed $2-billion (over Rs 8,000 crore) company last year processed 70 per cent of the shares voted in the US. Broadridge Financial Solutions (India) managing director V Laxmikanth tells K Rajani Kanth that “India is a five-year plan for Broadridge, a market that it cannot afford to miss.” Excerpts:

What is the potential for proxy voting services in India?

Electronic proxy voting allows more shareholders to participate, making the process demanding, forcing the companies to be more transparent. Proxy voting services currently contribute almost 70 per cent to our revenues and we are slowly looking at a global expansion, including India.

However, there are no regulations in India at present that can support such services. We have just started talking to all the stakeholders including the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI).

We are demonstrating the product to companies as well and many are open about it. Amendments in support of this initiative will take quite some time. It will take two to three years’ time.

Meanwhile, the US is in a very advanced stage of adapting our Proxy Edge with almost 200 companies using the solution. We have started moving to other markets like Japan and Australia too.

Will you be customising the proxy product to suit Indian requirements?

We want to make sure that it is a ‘made-for-India’ product. Though not easy to achieve, we want to operate in India keeping the cost structure in view.

Any plans to ramp up India operations?

Broadridge currently has a global headcount of 4,200, of which 750 are based out of its India operations at Hyderabad.

With scale in our business, we are investing $2 million (around Rs 8 crore) in creating an additional 25,000-sft of office space in the current premises. This will add 250 more professional in the next six to nine months. We plan to take a call to go for a multi-city expansion at a later stage.