European Proxy Research Consortium Joins ADP’s Vote Execution Platforms

New York, NY – November 19, 2003 – ADP Investor Communication Services (ADP ICS), a division of Automatic Data Processing’s (NYSE: ADP) Brokerage Services Group, has added a new group of proxy research providers to its vote execution platforms, ProxyEdge® Lite (PE Lite) and ProxyEdge 7.06. The European Corporate Governance Service (ECGS) offers proxy analyses for the Eurotop 300 from independent research providers in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden.

In addition the UK’s oldest and most prestigious proxy research company PIRC Limited (Pensions & Investment Research Consultants, founded in 1986) has also made its full coverage universe available over the ADP platforms. PIRC founder and managing director Alan MacDougall said "ADP is the leading global provider of on-line voting services and PIRC is pleased to provide its own clients access to our research on ADP’s platforms. In a global capital market our clients require global voting capacity and ADP can provide a leading edge platform to help them." PIRC provides coverage for the FTSE All Share Index of over 1000 UK-listed companies.

The ECGS research members are PIRC Ltd of the UK, Proxinvest sarl of France, the Deutsche Schutzvereinigung fur Wertpapierbesitz e.V. (DSW) of Germany, Corporate Governance Spain sl in the Spanish market, Studi e Investimenti Mobiliari srl of Italy, Centre Info sa of Switzerland, DSR of the Netherlands and GES Investor Services of Sweden. Proxy voting institutions around the world using ADP’s voting platforms will now be able to access meeting-specific research on the Eurotop 300 provided by these local market providers directly from the platforms, greatly increasing the efficiency of their voting process.

"This further expansion of independent, local market research on our platforms highlights ADP’s ongoing commitment to streamlining the proxy voting process for institutions worldwide," said Bob Schifellite, senior vice president and general manager, ADP ICS. "With the inclusion of the ECGS and its members, ADP clients can now access locally produced proxy research in all major capital markets, and in many cases multiple providers in these markets. I am very excited about this addition to our institutional service offering, and look forward to continuing the process of bringing value-add services to ADP clients."

PE Lite is a web-based proxy vote execution platform, while ProxyEdge 7.06 is a proprietary ADP voting system. Both platforms enable users to aggregate all of their proxy voting activity in one place, greatly simplifying the process of voting and recordkeeping across all their accounts. Currently, ADP has over 1,400 installations globally of its ProxyEdge voting platforms.