Introduction Methodology Respondent data Global overview Regional view: North America Regional view: Europe Regional view: Asia Sector overview
The 2021 IR Magazine Global Investor Relations Practice Report is the 10th 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 800 IR practitioners to a global survey overseen by IR Magazine. The 2021 edition is unique in that it monitors IR practices and resources during a period entirely within the experience of 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 numbers of men and women working as investor relations 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 managers’ 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 IR budget, team size, reporting structure and analyst coverage is gathered from survey responses between Q1 2021 and Q3 2021. All other data points are calculated from responses to our latest survey round, conducted during 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:
