Lasting digital dividends on your investor day investment
While it’s clear that virtual worked – and still works – when needed, hybrid doesn’t seem to have quite lived up to expectations, at least as far as investor days go, with IR professionals noting that engagement tends to become somewhat detached.
‘Investors and analysts tend to be quieter if they’re online,’ explains T+L’s Christopher Agnew. ‘So you don’t get the same questions.’
Investors and analysts tend to be quieter if they’re online so you don’t get the same questions
Still, the pandemic era proved how effective virtual can be: two of the three investor days Amelia Lee has held at StarHub since joining the firm were virtual, while Tractor Supply’s Mary Winn Pilkington says that pre-pandemic, her firm might have had 100-125 people attend an investor day. When everything went virtual, the firm started putting on what she calls ‘enhanced earnings’ meetings, which could attract 600 people.
Although the preference might be for in-person events, investors are more stretched in their availability, says eDreams ODIGEO’s David de la Roz Fernandez. The ‘time investors have is more limited as they do lots of the work sell-side equity teams used to do,’ he explains. ‘As a result, unless you are able to stand out and generate interest, it is really hard to get traction.’
Because of this, he says eDreams does do hybrid if necessary. Even for those that don’t do hybrid, though, no investor day goes unrecorded, with companies sharing key messages with investors that couldn’t join in person and hosting recordings on the IR website.
‘We break our recording up into sections, so that someone can easily go to our web page and watch the new business strategy section, or the financial section,’ Agnew explains. ‘If people are new to the story, this is also a great way to make it more accessible.’ And because T+L was setting out longer-term goals over four or five years, that gives you content with a shelf life of several years.