Global Investor Relations Practice Report Sample 2022
Based on a survey of more than 800 corporate IR professionals, the Global Investor Relations Practice Report 2021 looks at how IR teams operate worldwide.
Global Investor Relations Practice Report 2022 Sample
The 2022 IR Magazine Global Investor Relations Practice Report is the 11th annual study of the resources dedicated to and practices of investor relations teams around the world. It is based on the responses of more than 450 IR practitioners to a global survey overseen by IR Magazine.
The 2022 edition monitors IR practices and resources during a period that has seen the easing of travel and working restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This report covers IR budgets and the level of spending on external services, as well as IR team sizes and the levels of men and women working as IR professionals. We also monitor corporate meetings with investors, the level to which these are held virtually rather than in person and the level of senior management involvement in them. Senior management engagement is also explored in the amount of time they spend on IR and which senior management members the IR team reports to.
The full report covers total global figures as well as data from the regions of North America, Europe and Asia.
In each of these sections data is further broken down by company size into small-cap, mid-cap, large-cap and mega-cap groups.
We also report on total figures for each of the 11 Bloomberg industry sector classifications.
The findings in this report are taken from the annual global IR practice surveys carried out by IR Magazine and conducted electronically over the past year. Data for budget, team size, reporting structure and analyst coverage is gathered from survey responses between Q1 2022 and Q3 2022. All other data points are calculated from responses to our latest survey round, conducted during Q2 & Q3 2021.
Thanks to the high response rate from the global IR community, we have been able to sub-segment the data in this report, splitting it by region and subsequently by market capitalization. This allows for the creation of meaningful peer groups, which provide a more sophisticated level of benchmarking. We have also been able to break down the data by market sector.
Most data in this report consists of mean average figures of specific classifications. The majority of these figures are adjusted to lessen the influence of mistyped responses or disproportionate values. The level of adjustment necessary involves excluding the highest and lowest five percentiles from the mean calculations. Whenever a mean average is the result of data from a pre-set scale, figures are not adjusted and all values are used in the calculations.
All monetary figures given in this report are in US dollars, with company market capitalizations classified as follows:
There has been only the most marginal increases in overall IR budgets this year. The global average IR budget for 2022 is $336,000, a rise of just $1,000 from 2021. This also means there has been a mere $7,000 variation in the global average for IR budgets over the past three years.
This represents a stabilization in IR budgets after a long-term decline. The global average budget in 2012 was $552,000. The four years from 2013 to 2016 saw the average fall by more than $100,000. The following four years from 2017 to 2020 saw a further fall of more than $100,000 so that, by 2020, the global average IR budget was down to $329,000.
According to company size, both small-cap and large-cap IR budgets have seen notable increases, with small-cap averages rising by $29,000 and large cap by $37,000. Mid-cap and mega-cap budgets have fallen back this year, with both having seen an increase in 2021.
The proportion of IR budgets spent on external services remains at 28 percent, meaning the global average spend on external services in real terms is $94,000. While all other cap sizes have seen a slight drop in the proportion of their IR budget spent on external services, the amount small-cap companies spend has risen from 26 percent in 2021 to 31 percent this year.
Team size
Regional view: North America
The average North American IR team consists of two people, a marginal variation from the 2021 figure of 1.9 and the 2020 figure of 2.1. Since 2013 there has been little change in the size of North American IR teams, with the average number ranging between 1.9 and 2.2.
IR teams are typically more male than those in other regions, with men comprising 55 percent of the IR workforce. IR teams increase with company size from 1.2 people among small caps to 3.8 at mega-cap companies. Mid-cap IR teams have the highest proportion of men, while mega-cap IR teams report the majority of their members to be women.
Senior management IR days
Regional view: Europe
Senior management IR days
European senior management teams spent an average of 43 days in total on IR in the past year, one day fewer than the global average. This is an increase of eight days on the time spent in 2021 and is the highest recorded number of days spent on IR by European senior management since we first started reporting in 2011.
The reason for this rise is down to the efforts of European CFOs, who have increased the amount of time they spend on investor relations by an average of eight days in the past year. CEOs have spent an extra two days on IR while other senior managers have reduced the amount of time they spend on IR by one day. Senior management at larger companies in Europe spent the most time on IR, with mega-cap managers spending 50 days in the past year. Mid-cap senior management spent 10 days fewer than this, while small-cap managers dedicated 41 days to IR.
Investor meetings
Regional view: Asia
Asian companies held an average of 66 meetings in total in the 12 months to Q3 2022. This is not only a lower number of total meetings than last year but also the lowest recorded number for Asian companies and more than 100 fewer meetings than the pre-pandemic total in 2019.
An average of 14 in-person meetings were held by Asian firms in the past 12 months. Although this is notably fewer than in other regions, the proportion of in-person meetings compared with virtual in Asia is broadly consistent with the global picture. Among Asian companies, there is just a 2 percentage-point difference between the number of in-person meetings involving senior managers and the proportion of senior management involvement in virtual meetings. Just above three in 10 investor meetings with Asian firms have senior management in attendance.
The number of virtual investor meetings increases from 30 among small caps to 108 at mega-cap companies. But Asian megacaps held one in-person meeting fewer than small caps over the period. A lower proportion of small-cap meetings involve senior management than do meetings at other cap sizes.
Consumer discretionary
Sector focus
