How are IR teams around the world planning their 2023 engagement calendars? Tim Human investigates
What should the IR calendar look like following three years of mainly virtual engagement? That was the question facing Christine Lau, head of IR at CelcomDigi, during a major planning session with management in January.
The telecoms company, which became Malaysia’s largest after a merger last December, is in demand for meetings. ‘We have been receiving a lot of engagement interest from investors across many regions,’ Lau says. ‘The need to reach out to them physically has also increased. But I do need to consider time differences, traveling hours and – most importantly – the schedules of my C-suite.’
Around the globe, IR teams have been pondering similar questions. With nearly all Covid restrictions lifted, companies are now free to hop on planes for conferences and roadshows as they did in 2019. But the lockdown years showed that much can be accomplished without booking a flight.
IR professionals don’t expect a return to pre-pandemic calendars. In IR Magazine’s Global Roadshow Report, which polls the views of several hundred IROs, 79 percent of respondents say Covid-19 will lead to a permanent change in roadshow activity.
Conversations with IROs reveal how companies are settling into post-pandemic engagement. Some are still in transition mode, having only recently emerged from travel restrictions. Others are further along, with the last year spent trialing a new mix of virtual and in-person meetings.
At CelcomDigi, around 80 percent of engagement last year was virtual. ‘The demands of the merger, along with ongoing Covid restrictions in some locations, meant online meetings were the most effective way to stay in touch with key buy-side and sell-side contacts,' says Lau.
'This year, however, we have decided to add physical roadshows and conferences to our engagement schedule. Coincidentally, we recently finalized our five-month engagement plan. Our approach was to identify the country to visit based on the locality of key shareholders and potential investor groups.
‘We then narrowed down a list of secondary countries for virtual roadshows. For us, engagement style should be value-added for the management team and we often ask: what is the value add here? What is the key difference between physical and virtual engagement?’
For the first half of the year, CelcomDigi has settled on trips to neighboring countries and, hopefully, the UK. It is also planning a major hybrid investor day in June to showcase the newly merged business. ‘We are extremely excited about the company story and looking forward to bringing it live,’ says Lau.
Smoothing the transitionOlivia Wang, IR director at Yue Yuen Industrial, the Hong Kong-listed footwear manufacturer, sees 2023 as a ‘transition’ year.
Prior to the pandemic, the business would conduct at least one big overseas roadshow each year, either to North America or Europe, and Wang is keen to bring that back. But she is thinking about ways to smooth the transition after three years of virtual engagement. A too-hectic schedule could mean management ‘never want to travel with us again,’ she jokes.
Another consideration is that some executives are not yet familiar with roadshows. ‘Usually, the non-deal roadshow schedule would be very, very packed,’ Wang says. ‘We would jump from one city to the next. Our people are familiar with international travel but usually they would stay at the same location for the whole week.’
The plan is to use investment conferences as a way to see many investors from the same region in one location. For example, the management team could attend a consumer event in London and then the investor relations team could hit other locations like Edinburgh and Paris. Wang says she has no problem adding a Eurostar stop in the French capital, calling the city her ‘second home’.
While some companies have grown very fond of virtual engagement, Wang says she isn’t a fan given that investors often didn’t pay attention. ‘It took no effort to join a group meeting so no one was listening,’ she notes. Yue Yuen will continue to use virtual and hybrid meetings, however, as the demand is there from investors and they offer flexibility for management, she adds.
For inbound trips, Wang says the company is keen to showcase its high-tech facilities in Vietnam. Normally, such visits would happen toward the end of the year, but, having been away for so long, investors are pushing for an earlier date in 2023.
In a twist on regular site visits, the manufacturer may co-ordinate with sector peers. ‘We could potentially make it happen at a similar time, so investors would enjoy the benefits of visiting one after the other,’ she says. ‘It’s unique that in Hong Kong companies in the same industry are more like friends than competitors. We can discuss potential collaboration on events together.’
What is the key difference between physical and virtual engagement?
Back in EuropeLast year, The Lion Electric Company, the Canadian manufacturer of electric buses and trucks, got back to long-haul travel with a three-day trip to Europe – and loved it, says vice president of IR and multiple IR Magazine Award-winner Isabelle Adjahi. Seeing people face to face reminded everyone of what’s missing from a Zoom or Teams gathering, she explains.
In-person trips also allow space for serendipitous moments that couldn’t happen online. While in Europe, Adjahi bumped into a fund manager on the Eurostar from Paris to London, who recognized her from a virtual conference during the pandemic.
They had an impromptu one-on-one meeting there and then on the train. ‘Put your camera on – you never know who is going to recognize you,’ Adjahi says. ‘And he is going to remember me forever now!’
For 2023, she expects online and physical engagement to be split roughly 50:50. She does targeting in-house and finds virtual meetings highly valuable for introductory calls, to see whether an investor would be a suitable candidate for a meeting with management at the next roadshow in New York or London. ‘One thing management hates is going to see a person who has never heard about the company,’ she says. ‘You have to go through the deck page by page.’
Virtual is also useful for some investor calls after earnings and sell-side analyst interaction, adds Adjahi. But post-quarter roadshows and investor conferences will mostly be in person. She says brokers are incentivizing people to show up at conferences. ‘If you are online, you get way fewer meetings than if you go in person,’ she says.
Despite being a Canadian company, Lion Electric is only just back to in-person roadshows in Toronto. ‘The US is done, Europe is done,’ says Adjahi. ‘[But] I am about to start my first non-deal roadshows in Canada this year. Parts of the country were really hit by Covid, especially Quebec. And people love the working-from-home thing.’
It took no effort to join a group meeting so no one was listening
Ramping up in-person meetingsFor some companies, 2023 is a reset year, a time to get back on the road and ramp up in-person engagement. But others, like Siemens Healthineers, have already found a balance they like – and are sticking with it.
The German medtech firm, which makes a range of diagnostic equipment, is using investment conferences as its principal way to meet investors face to face. Its post-earnings roadshows, meanwhile, remain virtual until Q4, when the conversation takes on a wider lens and it’s good to speak in person, explains head of investor relations Marc Koebernick.
He describes the approach as a ‘good compromise’ under which the €55.6 bn ($60 bn) company can meet with everyone in person at least once a year, while maintaining touch points in an efficient manner. When physical events do come up, the IR team likes to send two members so they can make the most of the opportunity to socialize.
While finalizing the calendar took longer than hoped – some brokers took longer than expected to confirm their conference dates – the key elements were in place by early January. Interested members of the buy side and sell side, as well as other IROs, can see the plans in a detailed schedule available on the IR website.
Siemens Healthineers is also planning an investor day toward the end of the year. The company held a big virtual event back in 2021 when it set out mid-term targets but would like to go back to in person for 2023, Koebernick says.
Details have yet to be finalized but the basic idea is for a meet-the-management-style event at one of Siemens’ experience centers in Germany. A webcast is also likely to be offered, Koebernick says, the aim of which will be to ‘incentivize’ people to come and get to know managers beyond the C-suite.
If you are online, you get way fewer meetings than if you go in person
New Year changesWhile 2023 planning has been disrupted by uncertainty over broker events and Covid restrictions, Cellnex Telecom, the Barcelona-based telecoms tower operator, had a whole different issue to deal with.
Less than two weeks into the New Year, the company’s chief executive of eight years, Tobias Martinez, stood down from his role. The move followed a shift in strategy last November away from acquisitions and toward organic growth and lowering debt.
It’s certainly an ‘interesting time,’ says Juan José Gaitán, head of IR at Cellnex. ‘There are lots of questions about the leadership and how the succession plan is going.’
Understandably, the investor relations calendar is now very much up in the air. But there are some investment conferences the company is already committed to, says Gaitán. ‘We have plenty of questions that at this stage we cannot answer, but it’s difficult for us to avoid going to these events,’ he notes.
Generally, the company prefers conferences to ad hoc roadshows, given the attractive options available in the telecoms sector. ‘It’s not unusual to find a very good telco conference happening in London,’ explains Gaitán. ‘Why ask a broker to arrange an ad hoc roadshow when, just one month after that, we would have the opportunity to attend that conference?’
While virtual is efficient, it is impossible to match the quality of a physical meeting
Like most IR teams, the amount of in-person engagement is down overall for Cellnex, compared with before the pandemic. Virtual engagement is highly efficient, but it also makes sense because investors are less accessible, says Gaitán. They are spending less time in the office, and some have moved out of town, he explains. He tells an anecdote about colleagues who traveled to an investor’s office in New York, only to have to hold a virtual meeting because the contact was working from home that day.
Some locations are still a must-visit, thoughadds Gaitán, such as New York and London. Others, especially far-flung places, are better accessed via Zoom, Teams or WebEx.
‘Mostly, for tier two areas, it doesn’t make sense for me to consider a physical event,’ Gaitán says. ‘For example, we have investors in Los Angeles but I’m not considering a flight to there to see two or three investors.
‘While virtual is efficient, it is impossible to match the quality of a physical meeting. We are therefore trying to find the right balance between virtual and physical.’
