Computershare's rambling CEO in 2003

The Age's Christopher Webb has captured much of what we wanted to say about Chris Morris's rambling address at yesterday's Computershare AGM in his Strictly Private column.

Here is the item in full:

It's party central at Computershare

It was a long-winded spiel from Christopher John Morris at the Computershare annual meeting yesterday at Federation Square.

The company chief spoke at length of the share-registry keeper's global aspirations, peppering it with references to his own personal global adventures. He confided to the 200 or so shareholders that recently he had been cavorting at Munich's beer-drenched Oktoberfest as the guest of a German company with which he had had dealings. "It's a great party," he assured them.

And then he relayed details of his Chicago-based staff serenading him with what he described as the company's theme song, Tina Turner's Simply the Best. Ugh!

Closer to home, he talked of evenings at the bar of his Portsea pub. There he would meet with departing board member Peter Griffin, who owns a house in the area, to chew the fat.

But best of all, he assured shareholders, his globetrotting itinerary would be expanded with the soon-to-be-completed acquisition of US company Georgeson.

"We've always been trying to get to Italy so we can go over there and have some holidays," he said.

"So finally we'll get to Italy if we do this deal and Spain and France aren't that bad either."

Herewith the Morris travel diary concludes."

CRIKEY: Now Webby has long had a negative tone in his commentary on Computershare and it should be pointed out that the stock is up from a low of $1.40 in April to a peak this week of $3.71 although for some reason it plunged 20c to $3.42 today after falling 9c yesterday. Maybe the market is worried the $US115 million Georgeson deal will not be completed as Morris was so enthusiastic yesterday that the owners might yet decide they've sold too cheaply.

Finally, we'd like to add a few more interesting comments from Morris to the ones that Webby covered today:

"We ran around the world madly buying things and others had to go in and clean up the mess."

"I am sure if you stay with us we'll make you happy."

"We have a far more representative board globally than any other Australian company."

Welcoming new director Tom Honan: "We're still getting used to Tom but we will train him up."

"We have never been good at sales and marketing.'

"We've had some high profile recruits that have not worked."

"We have a fantastic team and they are all good friends of mine and we can talk totally honestly."

Introducing Steve Rothbloom: "He's a mad New Yorker and we call him the jumping kangaroo."

"I would like a little clap for my sister Penny."

Canadian boss Steve someone "is an ex rugby league player so he is straight to the point."

A marketing woman called Pippa helped with the slides which led to this comment:

"This is what we talked about Pippa, funny name that, we can never get used to it."

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