ASX and Corporate File launch "Open Briefing"

Investors will have easier access to company briefings through a new service launched today by Australian Stock Exchange Ltd ("ASX") and Corporate File Pty Ltd. The service, called "Open Briefing", can be used by listed companies to brief the market. It involves a record of an interview between subscribing company executives and Corporate File analysts. The "Open Briefing" can be used to explain company announcements, results or other corporate issues of interest to the market. The "Open Briefing" will be released by ASX to the market and will be available to the public, at no cost, on the Corporate File website and the company's website, if it has one. The Corporate File website will be open to take e-mail questions from all market participants either in relation to a company's specific announcement or generally. Major announcements made by a company will also be summarised by Corporate File analysts and posted on the website so shareholders will only have to go to one place to access, at no cost, both an announcement and any "Open Briefing", which may follow the announcement. "Corporate File is designed to provide direct and equal access to information about a company to offshore investors, private shareholders, financial advisers, brokers and the press," Mr John McMurtrie, ASX's Executive General Manager Investors and Companies, said today. "We believe the "Open Briefing" service will help address some of the issues raised recently by ASIC and the Australian Shareholders Association about shareholders' general access to information. "It's an innovative use of Internet technology, which we see as the mechanism by which companies will increasingly communicate with their stakeholders," he said. "We think it's a concept that fills an important gap in the market," Mr Stephen Curnow, Managing Director of Corporate File said. "Unlike private briefings, the Open Briefing will enable companies to brief the vast majority of the market at one time. "Information which has traditionally been the domain of professional investors will now be freely accessible to both small and large investors," he added. The arrangement between ASX and Corporate File provides ASX will receive 20% of the gross revenue which Corporate File receives from companies' subscriptions to the "Open Briefing" service. The first "Open Briefings" from BRL Hardy, Iluka Resources and Henry Walker Eltin are being released to the market today and will be available on the Corporate File website which can be found either at www.corporatefile.com or via www.asx.com.au