_Awards Why the winners won: IR Magazine Awards – South East Asia 2020

Best practice interviews with South East Asia’s finest IR teams

Awards

Why the winners won:
IR Magazine Awards –
South East Asia 2020

Best practice interviews with South East Asia’s finest IR teams

Storm analogies reigned supreme among the winners of the IR Magazine Awards – South East Asia 2020. From perfect storms to depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes, it’s clear that many teams had to batten down the IR hatches to weather the pandemic winds.

But with ‘innovation and agility’, IR Magazine’s award-winning companies not only overcame the challenges thrown up by Covid-19 but also ensured they were available to communicate during extreme volatility even as issues such as ESG gained an ever-greater focus.

Here we present video interviews with some of the award-winning companies from across the region.

The virtual event took place on December 8, 2020 and, as with other IR Magazine Awards, trophies were split across two categories. In the awards-by-research categories, the runners-up and winners were decided by a survey of hundreds of investors and analysts. In the awards-by-nomination categories, companies submitted entries that were then judged by a panel of investor relations experts.

CP All

Best overall investor relations (large cap)
Best investor relations officer (large cap): Jiraphan Thongtan
Best in sector: consumer staples

‘A perfect storm’ is how Jiraphan Thongtan, head of IR at CP All in Thailand, describes 2020. The challenges the company confronted, she says, were not just focused around Covid-19. The company also completed a ‘complicated’ $10.6 bn deal for Tesco’s Asian operations. ‘This [was] one of the biggest deals in Asia,’ explains Thongtan. There were a lot of rumors around the deal, which was confidential for a long time, making communication with investors and other stakeholders a particular challenge for the IR team. And then there was the pandemic. The company had to respond to ‘protective measures’ put in place by the Thai government, such as curfews, as well as panic-buying by consumers.

Indorama Ventures

Best overall investor relations (mid-cap)
Best investor relations officer (mid-cap): Vikash Jalan
Best in sector: materials

Sustainability is something that has been ‘magnified in a big way’ during 2020, says Vikash Jalan, vice president of strategic planning and investor relations at Indorama Ventures. ESG – as well as market volatility due to the pandemic – has really been a key issue over the past year. The company has around 25,000 employees across 33 countries and, as a result of the pandemic, it created a global management team with a focus on ESG issues. Much of what the company does around health and safety, for example, ‘is a given,’ says Jalan, adding that in future it’s going to be more about ‘how we include that [information] as part of our regular materials. How do we communicate this important information?’

AKR Corporindo

Best overall investor relations (small cap)
Best investor relations officer (small cap): Salman Ali

‘AKR Corporindo is a unique and standout company in that this year we’ve delivered very strong operational and financial performance,’ says Salman Ali, the company’s head of investor relations. ‘Our volumes are up almost 27 percent year on year, and our net profit is up almost 18 percent year on year.’ Ali says this has led to an influx of interest and questions from investors. ‘From an IR perspective, it’s a good problem,’ Ali says. ‘We get questions about how we can deliver such strong performance in such a difficult macro environment.’

PTT

Best in sector: energy

PTT’s challenges in 2020 were two-fold. First, explains Panporn Sasananan, vice president of IR at the oil and gas firm, energy demand went up as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, oil prices were driven down to ‘rock bottom’. This, she says, ‘created huge pressure on oil and gas businesses.’ The price war was ‘like a shockwave across the entire industry, creating the biggest sell-off since the global financial crisis,’ she adds. This created a huge loss for the company and meant the IR team had to communicate the mitigation plan to all stakeholders, both for the short term and the long term.

Manulife US REIT

Best in sector: financials

The past year has been ‘every IRO’s worst nightmare come true,’ says Caroline Fong, head of investor relations at Manulife US REIT. ‘There’s extreme volatility in the stock market: every day my stock is up 3 percent, down 5 percent, up 3 percent.’ What makes it so difficult, she adds, is that ‘you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it’s out of your control.’ It’s been about adapting really quickly to ‘this new world,’ she says. Speed has also been a challenge when it comes to communicating: as a US real estate investment trust, listed in Singapore and with most investors in the region, Fong has had to get messages out as fast as possible – and make sure investors stayed calm.

Bangkok Dusit Medical Services

Best in sector: healthcare

The past year was one of both ‘challenges and opportunities,’ says Ajaya Intaraprasong, assistant vice president of investor relations at Bangkok Dusit Medical Services. Thanking Thailand’s medical workers, she notes that the company’s clinics have been on the front line of testing and travel tracing, as well as making sure non-Covid patients and staff remain safe. Reluctance to come to clinics at the start of the pandemic did impact the financials, she says, as did the drop in tourist numbers. In terms of opportunities, the firm had already been using technology but Intaraprasong explains that Covid-19 accelerated that – both in terms of IR communications and around the delivery of its services. It even employed a smart robot to reduce contact.

B Grimm Power

Best in sector: industrials

B Grimm Power didn’t see a heavy impact from Covid-19, says Solaya Na Songkhla, head of IR at the Thai firm. But the company has been facing multiple challenges, even outside the pandemic, including a drought that serves as a stark reminder of the impact of climate change. ‘Adaptability, teamwork and [having] an entrepreneurial spirit’ all helped the IR team come together to work through challenges created by lockdowns and curfews. The company’s clients were harder hit, Na Songkhla notes. B Grimm Power offered discounts to a number of clients and distributed survival kits to communities around its plants, where people might have had their work hours reduced or lost jobs. The long-term impact, Na Songkhla predicts, is that the industrials sector will be more resilient.

AEM Holdings

Best in sector: technology

‘There have been lots of learnings… and I believe 2020 will result in a lot of long-term changes,’ Chandran Nair, CEO of AEM Holdings, tells IR Magazine. Despite this, some things remain consistent: valuing all stakeholders and, from an IR perspective, making sure the company’s investors understand where the technology firm is going. These things stay the same ‘irrespective of the year,’ Nair says. Talking about some of the challenges the company ‘overcame effectively but that required tremendous amounts of innovation and agility’, he cites supply-chain management. Another ‘change’ rather than ‘challenge’ is ‘how well do you do remote management’? A question no doubt of interest to companies across the globe as employees spread out in the ‘new normal’.

Gulf Energy Development

Best in sector: utilities

In 2020 the Thai government granted Gulf Energy Development licenses to import 1.7 mn tons per annum of liquified natural gas, as it looked to expand its reach into power plants both domestically and abroad. This led to an influx in investor interest and questions, according to Yupapin Wangviwat, the company’s executive director and CFO. Of course, investors also wanted to know whether Covid-19 would have an effect on plants that were under construction. Despite the upheaval, Wangviwat says the company made sure investors could always get hold of a member of the IR team – no matter whether they were at home or in the office.

Olam International

Best annual report (mid-cap)

As a global agriculture business, Olam International is reliant on the success of a broad set of stakeholders. In its 2019 annual report, it tells that story by focusing on the return on capital investment as it relates to the company’s finances, but also its social capital, intellectual capital, natural capital and other areas. For instance, the company has put a lot of time and energy into upskilling local farmers in its supply chain. In its annual report, the company wanted to ‘demonstrate that this is not just philanthropy, but is clearly linked back to our business model,’ says Nikki Barber, group head of public relations at Olam International.

Asia Aviation

Best annual report (small cap)

‘Last year brought a unique challenge to the aviation industry,’ says Pattarawan Sookplang, senior IR manager at Asia Aviation. Covid-19 meant the Thai border was closed to international visitors for six months, while Asia Aviation’s planes were grounded altogether for three months. Sookplang says there has been an influx of investor questions about the economic outlook for the company, its liquidity and how well equipped it is to succeed in the long term. This is important, she says, because she anticipates that travel won’t pick up again for another 12-18 months. Regardless of the challenges posed by Covid-19, the company still invested the time to create its first ever integrated annual report – something that was well received by the investment community.

City Developments

Best ESG materiality reporting

In September 2020, City Developments (CDL) was one of 87 companies that joined the UN Global Compact’s Climate Action week, as part of its long-standing commitment to ESG integration. ‘We have 13 years of sustainability reporting experience and this journey has been very rewarding to help us look through the financial materiality lens,’ says Esther An, the company’s chief sustainability officer. An has been spearheading CDL’s efforts for many years and has recently dedicated her time to adopting the TCFD framework. ‘We’re not just looking at today, but also looking to the future and the impact of both physical and transitional risks and the cost of those to our financial performance,’ she says.

PTT Exploration & Production

Best investor event
Best use of multimedia for IR

In 2019 Murphy Oil agreed to sell its Malaysian oil business to PTT Exploration & Production (PTTEP). This was a large and complicated transaction, according to Chanamas Sasnanand, PTT’s senior vice president of group finance. As a result PTTEP decided to host an investor day, which started with a conference call where the management teams of both PTTEP and Murphy Oil discussed the transaction, followed by a site visit. ‘We got very good feedback from our investors and analysts,’ Sasnanand says.

Ayala Land

Best IR during a corporate transaction

In June 2020 Ayala Land listed AREIT, its real estate investment trust (Reit), on the Philippines Stock Exchange – making it the first ever Reit to list on that exchange. ‘It’s been a busy year for us,’ says Michael Garcia, head of investor relations and compliance at Ayala Land and AREIT. During the listing process, Garcia says the first priority was investor education. ‘We needed to educate the market, which was used to equity and bonds,’ he explains. ‘We held large briefings with the buy side and sell side, and attention to detail was given to discussing dividends and returns.’ Garcia says they also contacted existing covering analysts and a host of local non-covering analysts to ensure the listing was a success.

Remaining award winners

Awards by research

Best in sector: communications – Advanced Info Service

Best in sector: consumer discretionary – Home Product Center

Awards by nomination

Best annual report (large cap) – Jardine Cycle & Carriage

Best crisis management – CK Power

Best IR website – Adaro Energy