The collection is unique and forms a significant part of the economic history of Australia - not to forget being at times central to the nation's political and social development. It provides unique details on the history of companies, and includes all companies from that period, whether still listed or not.
ASX is proud to announce that this important collection is now complete and available to the public in all mainland states, following a series of ASX donations to state public libraries. These records will now be available for all investors, and might also hold particular interest for corporate researchers, academics and journalists.
ASX donated the microfiche component of the collection to state libraries in 2000. This included the 1896 to 1979 collection which went to State Library of NSW, and the 1990 to 1996 component, a copy of which went to each of five state libraries.
Universities have largely been the recipients of the paper collections from their respective states, collections which concentrated on companies from the relevant state exchange. Collections are now held by the Universities of Melbourne and Western Australia. In 2000 the last donation was made to the University of Melbourne, completing their collection up to 1996.
One outstanding problem remained: the fate of tens of thousands of paper files in use at Sydney University that covered the years 1980 to 1996. (The university had agreed to house the files for their students' use, and only limited public access was provided.) This was the only complete record of the 1980 to 1996 years - a turbulent time featuring a prolonged bull market, followed in October 1987 by the series of market corrections that collectively signalled the onset of a severe bear market.
In 2001 ASX and University of Sydney received a grant to convert these files into digital form. In December 2001 a copy of the digital collection, stored on 160 CDs, was sent to each state library. This final piece of the puzzle has just been completed and sent off to the libraries - together with an ASX-developed database programme to access the CDs and provide a wealth of easily searched and retrieved information on company history.
In addition to the comprehensive collection listed above, ASX is also donating copies of many of the publications of the Sydney Stock Exchange to the State Library of NSW. Similar material has been given to other state libraries. These publications are of particular interest to researchers and economic historians, and provide them with a great deal of significant information on the history of the markets in general and on Australian companies individually.
These publications include Sydney Stock Exchange Research Department Research Reports, Annual Summaries, Market Comparative Analysis, Monthly Index Analysis, and the Finance and Profitability Studies dating from 1980 through 1996.
ASX is very proud of this initiative and will be continuing to ensure that where possible, historically significant stock exchange information is made available to the Australian public.
Summary of collection
- All company announcements issued by each listed company
- Annual Reports and financial statements
- Company Review Service reports issues by Sydney Stock Exchange
- Articles and Memorandum of Association
- Trust Deeds
- Includes many unlisted and second board companies
- Joint project with Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia Pacific (SIRCA), for schools of finance at various Australian universities
- Additional funding from Securities Industry Development Account
- ASX donated copy to State Library of NSW
- Huge collection of material on every company listed since 1896
- ASX-developed programme to provide user-friendly interface
- Makes it easy to search for companies and relevant documents across the 160 CDs in the digital collection
- In the future libraries will be able to automate access from search to delivery of relevant images
- Unique - the only comprehensive source of this material in Australia
- Collection is complete and continuous
