IR teams in Asia led the way with adoption of virtual conferences
IROs participate in more investor conferences than any other investor event, for both in-person and virtual formats. An overwhelming 85 percent of IROs attended a virtual investor conference in the year from Q3 2019 to Q2 2020, with 92 percent attending in-person conferences.
In-person investor conferences decreased in frequency in Q1 2020 and were practically eliminated in Q2 2020. Virtual investor conferences were almost unheard of in Q3 and Q4 2019, while 82 percent of virtual conferences took place in Q2 2020. As the pandemic hit, virtual conferences became the most readily available and important replacement for in-person investor events, with the average IRO attending nearly three virtual conferences in Q2 2020 alone.
While just over a third of investor conferences attended by North American and European IROs were virtual, Asian IROs attended more virtual than in-person conferences in this period. Asian IROs also attended the highest number of both in-person and virtual investor conferences of IROs from any region.
The number of both in-person and virtual investor conferences attended by IROs mostly increases with company size. The ratio of in-person to virtual conferences attended in this time remains fairly consistent across the cap sizes. Overall, mega-cap IROs attended almost twice as many investor conferences as small-cap IROs.
Investor conferences are the most common event for IROs to have attended, but roadshows were more frequently attended by investors in both in-person and virtual formats. Nearly three quarters of all investor conferences attended by investors in this time were virtual.
Although investors value the experience of in-person conferences over virtual, the difference in their rating of the two formats is smaller than with other investor events, with just 13 percentage points separating those who give each format a score of eight out of 10 or higher.
