WORLDWIDE CORPORATE ACTIONS
USERGUIDE
INTRODUCTION
Overview
Worldwide Corporate Actions has been developed in response to market forces and
suggestions from clients. This service sources Corporate Action Announcements
directly from over 130 exchanges on a daily basis. It aims to not only reduce the
number of different feeds needed, but to increase efficiency through the reduction of
staff time taken to process information.
This new service covers 48 different Event Types, ranging from AGMs, Liquidations,
Consolidations to Mergers and Acquisitions. With so much information being
delivered directly to your desktop via the Internet, EDI’s new Worldwide Corporate
Action service will allow Back Office professionals to be more productive by
providing quality data in a timely manner through a user friendly Internet
application.
EDI’s Web Service also incorporates a Portfolio Import Facility, which allows the
user to load a Portfolio of stocks that they hold, into the service via Sedol, ISIN or
Local code. The service will then produce a detailed report based upon those
securities held within the portfolio
Exchange Data International’s Worldwide Corporate Action Service is available
whenever and wherever you need it, delivered directly to your workstation. We have
removed the need for IT resources by basing our User Interface on the Internet. The
user can Hot-Desk and still access the service simply by login-on to the Internet with
a User Name and Password.
Worldwide Corporate Actions will help centralize a firm’s Corporate Action
Operations, while reducing risk and saving both time and money. The data is also
available as a data feed, to enable firms to populate mainframe systems and in-house
security portfolios.
CONTENTS PAGE
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 1
CONTENTS PAGE .................................................................................................................................. 2
FRONT SCREEN ..................................................................................................................................... 3
SEARCH BY ............................................................................................................................................ 3
ISSUER AND SECURITY ...................................................................................................................... 3
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT .................................................................................................................. 5
EVENT CALENDAR .............................................................................................................................. 5
FORTHCOMING EVENTS..................................................................................................................... 7
CODE CHANGE AUDIT ........................................................................................................................ 8
REPORTS ................................................................................................................................................ 8
RATE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................. 8
DATE SELECTION ................................................................................................................................. 9
PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT PRINT ............................................................................................. 9
USER PREFERENCE ............................................................................................................................ 10
COUNTRY SELECTION ...................................................................................................................... 10
EVENT SELECTION ............................................................................................................................ 10
OPTIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 10
FRONT SCREEN
The above options screen is displayed once you have clicked on the WCA tab after
entering your User Name and Password (please note: if you only have access to WCA
you will be taken to this page automatically and will not have to click on the WCA
tab).
The Four buttons shown above are:
Search By: Provides Issuer, Security, Event Calendar, Event Announcent,
ForthComing Events and Code Change Audit searches
Reports: Rate Summary, Date Selection and Portfolio Announcement Print
User Preference: Country Selection, Event Selection and Option configuration
Documentation: Event Glossary, Country Coverage, File Specification and
FAQs information
SEARCH BY
This button allows the user to perform six different search operations.
.
ISSUER AND SECURITY
The two basic searches are Issuer and Security. The above screen shows the search
options available to the user for an Issuer search. You would use the Country Drop
down list if you wanted to specify a single Country where the Issuer may be
Incorporated. The default selection is ‘All Countries’.
The user can search for an Issuer by simply entering the Issuer Name into the correct
box. You also have the option of using the Previous Issuer Name should the Issuer
have had a Name Change.
The below screen shows the format of the search results after entering ‘Abbey’ in the
Issuer Name box.
You can then select the correct Issuer from the list by clicking on the IssId number
beside the Issuer you want to view.
The above screen shows all the Corporate Action Events for the chosen Issuer, in
alphabetical order of Event. The list of Events is by Issuer and therefore will show
events for all Security types. You can view the Security details by clicking on the
SecID (fourth column from the left in the above screen shot). You can view the full
details of the Event by clicking on the EventId number.
Should you want to search for a particular security, without having to go via the Issuer
Search, you can use the Security search. This search allows the user to search for
Events at a security level by use of Sedol, Isin, US Code and/or Local Exchange code.
The screen also introduces the user to different Search coverage buttons – Global and
Portfolio. The Portfolio facility allows Users to upload a list of stocks that they hold,
and then by clicking the Portfolio Search button, the system will look only for those
stocks that exist with-in the users Portfolio. This search option appears on most of the
‘Search By’ buttons.
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT
This search allows the user to look for new announcements based on search criteria of
their choosing.
The search criteria are as follows:
Event selection: allows the user to select All Events, a Sub-set of Events (please see
User Preference section of userguide for more information) or an individual Event.
Country: As with the Event Selection, allows the user to define geographical
coverage of search.
From Date and To Date: Set date range of search
Record Status: Default choice is ‘Changed’ meaning Events that are both
completely new, and Events that have been announced previously but have been reannounced with updated information. ‘Created’ will search for only New
Announcements.
Search from the last: To be used instead of ‘From Date and To Date’. Provides list
of pre-selected date ranges from 1 day, 5 days, 1 month etc.
Once the User has inputted the necessary information and selected either Global or
Portfolio search, a list of events that match the search criteria will be displayed. To
view the full record for any Event, click on the EventId number.
EVENT CALENDAR
Where as the Event Announcement search provides you with information based on
the announcement date, Event Calendar provides information based on the separate
Key dates with in an announcement, such as Ex date for example.
The above Screen shows the search criteria for the Event Calendar search. As with
‘Event Announcement’, the user can select different Events and Country
combinations to suit their requirements. Unlike Event Announcement, the user can
input future dates in the From Date and To Date boxes, as the information we are
looking for will mainly be days or weeks from today.
What this search does that is very clever is that the list of dates that appear in the
‘Report Search Date’ are wholly dependant on what Event you select. Because each
Event can have its own key dates, the system will only show the dates relevant to the
Event selected to remove data redundancy.
For example, if I was to select ‘Takeover’, the dates shown to me in the ‘Report
Search Date’ drop down would be:
Once the search criteria have been inputted, the user selects either Global or Portfolio
search, and the Search results will be displayed. As before, the view the full record
for any Event, click on the EventId number. The below screen shot shows an
example of the full record for a ‘Takeover’ (please note – in addition to the structured
fields of information, there is also a Notes section that has free text information. This
is not shown in the example for space restraints).
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
This search provides the same functionality as the ‘Event Announcement’ search.
This search deals with multiple Events that are initially announced under the Event
‘Announcement’. This Event covers those announcements that are provisional and
may be subject to change or deletion. In addition, more than one type of Event may
be detailed under the Event. ForthComing Events takes the announcement and
separates the different Event types under their correct names, therefore allowing the
user to search these provisional announcements by Event.
This search is mainly for those users who wish to know as far in advance of Event
announcements, even though the Event may be deleted or radically altered before
becoming final. Once the Event is confirmed, it will appear as normal in the ‘Event
Announcement’ search.
CODE CHANGE AUDIT
Allows the user to enter either a Sedol or Isin code and perform a historical search on
that code. Useful for cleansing and updating of Internal Security Masterfiles.
REPORTS
RATE SUMMARY
The purpose of the report called 'Rate Summary' is to provide a generic summary of
all corporate action types that have both key dates and some kind of rate, ratio or both.
We have identified 19 such events out of the total of 53 currently supported (the list of
events with their key dates is shown under the ‘Date Selection’button). The idea is
that a date range is targeted e.g. next Monday to Friday. The report generated gives
details of all events happening in this date range using a user specified list of dates
with a ratio and/or a rate. There is a rate description field to clarify what the rate
means for each event record of the 19 events.
Once this report is generated it is envisaged that the user will only want to know how
subsequent datafeed changes have effected the original report as follows:= 1. New
records in the original target window. 2. Changed records (includes Deleted,
Cancelled, Omitted) 3. Records that because of key date changes are no longer in the
target window of the original report. (rare but important not to miss)
This would be run on daily changes up-to-and-including the last day of the original
target window. This means that a starting report for the following week will need to
be run before the demise of the previous one. For this reason a concept of a report1
and report2 will have to be introduced. This is necessary because the original report
must be remembered by the system to ascertain if subsequent daily changes has
moved records out of the original window.
DATE SELECTION
As mentioned above, this button allows the user to select which Events they wish to
include in the ‘Rate Summary’ Report, as well as selecting the key dates per Event.
The screen below shows an example of the ‘Date Selection’ screen.
PORTFOLIO ANNOUNCEMENT PRINT
This button, when clicked, will automatically compile a full printable list of all the
Announcements for that day that effect your Portfolio. This is to remove the need for
the user to print of each Announcement individually from the ‘Event Announcement’
screen.
USER PREFERENCE
This Button allows the user to set-up their Country Selection list, Event Selection List
and Options list.
COUNTRY SELECTION
When using both the ‘Event Announcement’ and ‘Event Calendar’ searches, the user
may wish to search for announcements on a sub-set of Countries. This screen allows
the user to select a group of Countries simply by putting a tick next to their choice.
EVENT SELECTION
Same principle as with the ‘Country Selection’ button.
OPTIONS
Allows the user to define various aspects of the service, from screen presentation to
Security Code restrictions.