Directors: Our home addresses should be secret

Thursday, 16 November 2017

Eight in ten directors would like their home addresses kept secret.

Company directors are pushing to change laws that make their home addresses public, fearing they could be targeted by angry shareholders, disgruntled customers, or protest groups.

Just over three-quarters of directors who responded to a survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD) felt it was unfair, and at odds with privacy laws, that directors' home addresses were published on the online Companies Office register of companies, which anyone to search.

Home security is common at high profile directors' homes.

When asked if directors should be able to instead use a 'service address' like Canadian or British directors, 'an overwhelming 79 per cent responded 'yes', highlighting directors' concerns about their addresses being publicly available,' said the IoD's Felicity Caird.

'Directors and their families can be put at risk from customers, staff, and other stakeholders approaching them at home.'

* A record number of people were banned from directorships**

Institute of Directors' Felicity Caird believes company directors should have a right to keep their home addresses secret.

The survey finding will bolster an IoD push to influence the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

Currently, MBIE does not appear to think the issue is one troubling many directors, though the call for home address secrecy is on its radar.

John Hawkins from the New Zealand Shareholders' Assocation wants unique director numbers.

'A relatively small number of directors have raised concerns about their residential address being publicly available,' it said in a paper released in May. 'As the issues involved are complex and require careful balancing with the need to ensure transparency, we intend to undertake further work on this issue.'

It plans to consult on the issue early next year.

The IoD also believes that once a plan to introduce director 'unique identifier numbers' is completed there will be even less reason to have directors' addresses in the public domain.

John Hawkins from the New Zealand Shareholders' Association (NZSA) said: 'We want to see directors receive a unique identifier number. This would remove confusion around people with the same name and make searching for all directorships held by a specific individual quick and easy. For many investors, the people running the company and their track record is an important predictor of future performance.'

'Currently, as part of an identification process, residential addresses must be given, although we doubt these are kept up to date, which compounds the issue.'

But Hawkins added: 'We are anecdotally aware of issues where residential properties have been targeted by disaffected parties.'

'If a unique identifier was introduced, then in NZSA's view, an address for service, with appropriate requirements around who and where this can be, would be a suitable solution. So long as the address for service process was robust, we do not see any transparency issues.'

Darren Morton from Executive Security Group was not convinced keeping directors' addresses secret would provide much protection against people committed to finding a director's home.

'There's 101 different ways of being able to track people down,' Morton said, including following them home, looking them up on the electoral role, or even paying a private detective.

'Anybody can engage a private investigator, and some of those guys are pretty sleazy. They will find out anything if you pay them enough.'