How to read an ASIC personal name extract

An ASIC personal name extract is the closest thing Australia has to a director's record. It lists every company in which a named person holds or has held a role that had to be notified to the regulator, with the date they took it up and the date they left.¹

What is on it

For each company: its name and ACN, the role, whether the appointment is current or ceased, and the start and stop dates. Roles include director, secretary and, for older records, alternate director.¹ Companies notify these changes under section 205B of the Corporations Act, usually within 28 days, so the dates on the extract are the dates the company reported, which may lag the event.²

The extract is ordered by company, not by date. To read it as a history, list the appointments in date order and mark each company's current status alongside: registered, deregistered, or in external administration.

What is not on it

Ownership. A person can control a company through shares held by another entity and never appear on its extract. Beneficial ownership sits elsewhere, in company extracts and in the register of members.

Conduct. The extract records appointments and cessations. It does not say why a person left, whether a company was solvent when they did, or what a liquidator later found.

Business names. A company can trade under a business name that appears nowhere on the extract. The business names register is a separate search.¹

What the patterns can tell you

A cluster of appointments on a single day usually means a restructure or the purchase of a group. A resignation, a reappointment and a second resignation within weeks, immediately before an external administration, is a pattern worth asking about, because the register itself will not explain it.

Deregistration is not the same as liquidation. A company can be deregistered voluntarily if it has no debts and no assets, or by ASIC for failing to lodge or pay fees. Once deregistered it ceases to exist and its remaining property vests in ASIC or the Commonwealth.³ External administration means a liquidator, administrator or receiver was appointed and there is a public notice and, later, a report.

How to get one

Through ASIC Connect, search the person's name in the organisation and business names search, then order the personal name extract for a fee. The document that arrives is a PDF with a time and date of extraction on it. Keep that; the register changes, and a claim that rests on the extract should say when it was pulled.¹