A very different year
Janet Dignan, founder of IR Magazine, introduces this year's report
IR Magazine has been publishing its Asian investor perception studies and putting on its awards events in the region since 2001. The separate Greater China and South East Asia awards events started in 2007 but 2020 was the first year those ceremonies had to be held virtually, for obvious reasons. For the same reason, 2020 has been the most challenging year for investor relations. The difficulty of holding all investor meetings online and avoiding all in-person meetings has, on the other hand, brought some advantages. The fact that no one has been able to meet in person has at least saved some of the IR budget and has increased turn-out because of the lack of need to travel. That’s been particularly welcome at a time when many companies are doing all they can to reduce costs. But investors and analysts haven’t all been happy. Many regret the lack of one-to-one meetings when, they say, they can choose what they want to talk about and make eye contact with the IRO, CEO or CFO they’re talking to. After all, investor relations is all about direct communications. Nevertheless, there are plenty of success stories, as evidence from the very people IROs most want to communicate with – the investment community – shows. The people we talk to for our research are full of praise for the best IROs, and those people are the very people we talk to for our research. So many congratulations to every company cited in this research, as well as all the individuals. Here’s to a more communicative 2021.