Are Broadridge's servers slow for you too?

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I’VE HELD off bringing this up before because I feel bad for the folks at Broadridge Financial Solutions. They’ve been getting it in the neck recently over this whole e-proxy debacle.

Even the Colgate-Palmolive Company called them out this week in a letter to the company’s shareholders, though I think there may be more to that story than meets the eye.

Fact is, when you’re as big as Broadridge, you’re bound to have some problems. But this latest problem is too much to bear, and I just can’t be quiet about it a minute longer.

Broadridge’s servers hosting a lot of companies’ annual reports and proxy statements are r-e-a-l-l-y sloooowwww. They. Make. Me. Want. To. Talk. Like. This.

But maybe it’s just me. Perhaps there’s something wrong with my high-speed connection or my browser configuration or something. So I’m asking for your help.

Here’s a bunch of links to Broadridge-hosted annual meeting materials. Please test the documents you find on these pages and tell me if your experiences are any different to mine. Most of the proxy statements are not so bad, but I find that the annual reports are mostly terrible.

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/tol

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/BBG

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/egle

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/nbl

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/PHLY

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/ARP

(list interrupted by browser crash due to PDF overload!)

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/cec

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/NTRS1

HTTP://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/TXN (This one is odd because it’s much faster on the company’s own IR website!)

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/WGLC

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/WFAC

http://ww3.ics.adp.com/streetlink/ROC

That should do for variety. Please let me know how it goes for you.

Oh, and just by the way, I don’t think there is anything in the rules that specifically addresses server response. There’s some reference in Footnote 35 to file sizes and remembering people on dial-up (which kind of raises questions about all those PDFs), but nothing specific about making sure your servers can handle the load.

You might think it would be common sense, but apparently unless the SEC spells everything out in black and white then no one is going to think about it.

Which reminds me, in most cases, like TXN above, there’s absolutely no reason why Broadridge should be hosting the materials and not the company itself, except for one that has been imagined or misinterpreted.

Astonishing. Really astonishing. Have a nice weekend.

Dominic Jones

Dominic (bio & disclosures) is IR Web Report‘s founder and an online investor relations consultant. He advises leading public companies and investor relations service providers worldwide on using the web for disclosure, engagement and profile building. You can contact him via the contacts page.