Just 7 percent of companies went on the road in the year from Q3 2020 to Q3 2021, with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic eradicating in-person roadshow activity for the overwhelming majority of companies. This compares with 81 percent of companies that went on the road from Q3 2019 to Q2 2020 and 93 percent in the previous year.
The small number of firms that did go on the road averaged 2.3 in-person roadshows during this time, considerably fewer than the average of 5.4 from Q3 2019 to Q2 2020 and 7.4 the year before. This means the overall average number of roadshows per company is 0.2, compared with an overall average of 6.9 for 2019 – the last year when reported roadshow activity was unaffected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
These in-person roadshows were significantly shorter in length than pre-pandemic roadshows. With those on the road spending an average of 2.8 days in total, the typical roadshow lasted 1.2 days, more than a whole day fewer than the 2.3-day average in 2019.
Among the in-person roadshows that did take place, there has been a greater reluctance to take senior management on the road. From Q3 2019 to Q2 2020, 81 percent of in-person roadshows involved senior management, while this year half of all in-person roadshows were conducted by the investor relations team alone.
Companies that went on the road over the course of this year typically used between one and two brokers for their in-person roadshow activity, compared with between three and four brokers the previous year and more than five in 2019. Given this finding – and how few respondents have actually been on the road in this time – it is not realistically relevant to produce a table of the most-used brokers for in-person roadshows.
The scarcity of in-person roadshows also prevents us from producing a list of the most-visited cities. Analysis of the few in-person roadshows that have taken place shows they were localized to the company’s own region. Only a couple of respondents ventured outside of their region for intercontinental roadshow travel.
