We’ve packaged up everything you need to know about best IR practice in the time of Covid-19, how our previous winners won, and much more. Read on to gain tips and ideas
The IR Magazine Forum looks at agility within IR, with conversation around virtual events dominating the session
There’s no doubt that the past 18 months have significantly changed the IR landscape. Thanks to lockdowns, travel restrictions and remote working, virtual-only events – if any events at all – have fast become the new norm.
At IR Magazine’s recent North America Forum, Debbie Hancock, senior vice president of investor relations at Hasbro, highlighted the realization that simply doing the same events but making them virtual isn’t an option, and that a change of format and strategy is needed.
‘There are events you do that you make available virtually, and there are events that are created for the virtual world,’ she said. ‘You could easily fill up a lot of time doing the same thing over and over again. Instead, we’ve done things like focus on smaller groups [and] we’re doing half a day, two thirds of the day or a couple of hours because that works best from our standpoint. We’re not focusing on geographies – we’re focusing on what’s the best use of time.’
New communications tools
The virtual landscape has also offered IR teams the perfect opportunity to try something new. Hancock explained how Hasbro replaced its traditional investor day with a pre-recorded, highly-produced event.
‘We filmed executives all around the world where they were situated,’ she said. ‘We did a lot of editing, post-production, graphics, video and music, and made it a curated, bespoke event that was very engaging.’
The move was welcomed not only externally, but also internally. ‘We got a lot of very good feedback from investors about it,’ said Hancock. ‘We also got really good feedback from our employees. People don’t usually call up and say, Wow, that was a great IR event, but this event was really well received.’
Panelist Rob Garrigan, head of corporate services at OpenExchange, has experienced the same shift in attitudes toward creating virtual events that have longevity and add value. ‘Many of the companies we’re working with realize and recognize that you’re creating an asset,’ he explained. ‘This is not a one-day event, this is not your typical earnings call.
‘This is the opportunity for the company to tell its stories, to share its strategy, keep the mindset around the longer term, rather than just being about what’s happening next month or next quarter. It’s creating an asset that will have some shelf life.’
Different opportunities
The pandemic has also opened up new opportunities for engaging with different audiences, as Mark Chyc-Cies, vice president of strategy, planning & investor relations at Gibson Energy, observed: ‘We’re finding we’re getting more contact with investors in secondary markets where we previously wouldn’t go very often, which is a benefit.’
Chyc-Cies has also found that the greater flexibility of virtual events has benefited companies and investors alike. ‘I think the other thing we’ve noticed is that it’s easier to meet outside of the conference,’ he said. ‘You’re seeing a lot more investors reaching out for check-in meetings outside of brokered events so it’s actually been very beneficial that we don’t have to wait for a conference or get to a city.’
The disadvantages
Despite all of the positives discussed at the forum, however, it’s clear that those on the panel have experienced some drawbacks. ‘It does seem to us that, pre-Covid, it was a little bit easier to get that intro meeting,’ Chyc-Cies explained. ‘When you were traveling through town, it was more of a rationale to stop by and meet the management team and make introductions. Virtually, I think that’s a little bit more of a forced introduction virtualy, especially if it ends up being a one on one.’
Hancock also felt virtual events impeded some opportunities for relationship-building, especially given their public nature. ‘You miss building those relationships,’ she said. ‘If I want to have a conversation with somebody before a group meeting and there are 10 other people on it, everybody’s listening to that conversation. You can’t have that private chat anymore – not that it’s about anything important, exactly: it’s just about building that relationship.’
Looking to the future
With virtual events likely here to stay for the foreseeable future, what corporate access opportunities will exist, and how are they expected to evolve? For Hancock, it’s about the value they can add.
‘I still think there’s a role, particularly if they’re able to bring in some of those new investors that are a little more challenging to get in front of,’ she said. ‘It’s going a level deeper, maybe with those secondary and tertiary cities you’re not as familiar with.’
For Chyc-Cies, it’s a timely reminder of the value of the function, and what IR teams can learn from it. ‘The way we do our job is to evolve, and I think the sell side will need to evolve, too,’ he said. ‘I personally like giving the sell side the opportunity to plan the day and plan the logistics. It is better at it, and it’s a good opportunity to recognize a ton of great work that’s being done by corporate access and events people in terms of putting these events on.
‘I would always say that as IR professionals we should make a point to be extra kind to corporate access folks. There’s an opportunity where we can really learn from them.’
Whatever the future may hold, the level of optimism at the forum was high. Commenting on his positive experiences of IR teams handling whatever is thrown at them, Garrigan concluded: ‘As we look forward, the way we’re going to engage with people is going to have some aspect of virtual tied to it. It’s in the DNA of every IR professional I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with: they are nimble, they are able to adapt.’
From Sustainalytics to S&P Global, we ask how IR teams prioritize requests for ESG information
In this regular article, we ask IR professionals how they would respond to a specific operational issue. In this article, we asked how IR and sustainability teams determine which requests for ESG data to respond to, and how to ensure investors are receiving the ESG information they need.
Abbigael Foster, senior analyst in sustainability at Equinix, says:
Investors today want readily available, decision-useful ESG information on companies in which they invest. Like all public firms, Equinix receives a high volume of ESG data requests from investors, customers and partners. These requests include aligning disclosures to standardized frameworks, responding to ratings and rankings and providing supplementary information via custom surveys or engagements.
Having a comprehensive and robust strategy around ESG disclosures is critical to being able to respond to these various requests. Annual disclosure for Equinix begins with our integrated shareholder wrap, which includes ESG highlights and is disseminated to more than 10,000 investors. Shortly after this, we issue our annual sustainability report and our sustainability website, which is a deeper dive into our ESG strategies, progress and metrics.
We also decide which ESG reporting frameworks most frequently requested by our stakeholders we should align with, and where to disclose. We use the GRI standards in our CSR report, SASB in our 10K and the TCFD framework on our website.
To ensure raters and rankers have access to accurate information, Equinix responds to widely followed groups such as CDP, S&P Global, ISS, MSCI and Sustainalytics. We prioritize these by evaluating who uses the data or results, whether scores tie into benchmarks or ESG indexes, how data is made public and which stakeholders are requesting our participation.
Requests for supplementary data are inevitable with the constantly changing ESG landscape, and we engage directly with our stakeholders to provide additional details on our strategy and progress as appropriate. ESG measurement and transparency are critical to Equinix’s ESG program success and are increasingly valued across the industry.
Hunter Wells, vice president of IR at Century Communities, says:
I don’t believe there is a single right or wrong answer for this: one framework may not be fully comprehensive. But there are certainly a few key considerations you should ponder to help you narrow things down.
Every issuer will be at a different stage in its ESG journey, will be benchmarked against a unique set of peers and will have a distinctive shareholder base with its own set of expectations. I would begin by polling your top shareholders to see whether they have any preference and researching whether any of your largest institutional investors have stated their support publicly for any particular methodology or framework.
Additionally, outside of your investors, you should think about other stakeholders whose input should be considered, such as your board of directors or even your top customers.
From there, you should have a better idea of your audience and what frameworks they are familiar with or have a preference for. Next, you will need to determine what resources and personnel you will have dedicated and available for ESG reporting.
I appreciate the simplicity of SASB as it has a concise a set of standards for more than 70 different industries and it can be used in conjunction with other frameworks so, looking ahead, we can efficiently build upon our ESG reporting disclosures and add additional frameworks. For most issuers, one or a couple of the most commonly used frameworks – GRI, SASB, TCFD and CDP – should provide a suitable start.