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How to modernize your investor day
Investor days have experienced an evolution. Five years ago, the focus was mainly on the in-person element. Then came the Covid pandemic, and investor days – like everything else – went fully virtual. Today, many companies want to return to face-to-face interaction, while retaining an effective online production to maximize their reach.
All this makes the task of putting on an investor day more complicated. Companies have to ensure the online experience is engaging for attention-strapped investors and analysts sitting at their desks. At the same time, given that people can now follow the event from the office or home, incentivizing in-person attendance has become tougher. Companies have had to get more creative with their formats and content choices.
Throughout this period of shifting practices, however, the basics of a great investor day have remained consistent. Companies should have something important to communicate, such as updating strategy, releasing guidance or introducing new management members to the investment community. And they need to plan carefully to ensure they meet their objectives for the event.
In this playbook, written in association with Lumi Global, we explore how companies are meeting their investor-day goals in 2024. The report features an exclusive poll of IROs, looking at areas such as investor-day challenges, tactics for anticipating questions and the best ways to measure success. We also speak with experienced IR and communications professionals to understand how they implemented best practices at recent events.
Given all the changes affecting investor days over recent years, IR Magazine asked investor relations professionals to rank what they see as the biggest challenges to putting on an investor day in the current market.
The highest proportion of first-place votes goes to preparing speakers for Q&A, selected by 22 percent of respondents, followed closely by maximizing attendance (20 percent).
Noticeably, 12 percent of respondents select catering to retail investors as their top issue. This will be the case for companies with a high concentration of retail owners.
A few options don’t get many first-place votes but still emerge as common challenges for investor relations teams. For example, macroeconomic uncertainty, which can complicate the process of telling your story, receives the largest proportion of second-place votes (25 percent), indicating it is a significant issue for many companies. Similarly, budget constraints is ranked first by only 3 percent of respondents, but is chosen as the third-biggest challenge by 24 percent.
Many IROs cite ‘other’ options in their responses to our poll. Of these responses, two areas receive several mentions: content creation and scheduling. Of course, many of these challenges overlap with each other. For example, scheduling issues are usually connected to the challenge of maximizing attendance.
We also quizzed IR professionals on how often they undertake investor days. The most common response is once a year, selected by 31 percent, followed by once every two years (27 percent), while more than four in 10 IROs (42 percent) say either every three years or less frequently.
Experienced IROs advise companies to put on investor days only when they have something new and important to communicate to the investment community, and caution against falling into the habit of doing an investor day every year just for the sake of it.
‘You’ve got to be doing it for a reason, and you’ve got to be clear how you’re going to achieve that goal through the course of the investor day,’ says Peregrine Riviere, head of IR at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
‘I always think the biggest reason is to build a link between management and investors, and to fill in the missing pieces of the jigsaw. You’re presenting a strategy, you’re often presenting medium-term guidance, but really what you’re trying to do is instill trust and belief that these are the people who can deliver that.’
Stella-Jones, the North American manufacturer of pressure-treated wood products, wanted to offer an engaging experience for both in-person and virtual attendees at its inaugural investor day, which won best investor event (small to mid-cap) at the IR Magazine Awards – Canada 2024.
The company made a number of decisions with the virtual audience in mind. The presentations were kept short, with six management team members speaking over the course of just over an hour. The Q&A session, moderated by the CEO, was made fully interactive, with a mix of questions taken from the room and via an online platform. The production team kept the webcast feed dynamic, regularly changing camera angles, zooming in on presentation materials and showing people asking questions from the floor. In addition, online attendees could switch between slides in English and French, catering to different language needs.
Stella-Jones also wanted to offer a rich experience for the in-person audience. This was done largely via a product showcase, where members of management hosted kiosks focused on different product categories: utility poles, railway ties and residential lumber. Investors and analysts also had the chance to mingle with members of management leaders during a break and over lunch. ‘We wanted a tactile component for guests to interact with our products, ask questions and see things that don’t necessarily come across on an earnings call,’ says Stephanie Corrente, director of corporate communications at Stella-Jones.
Stephanie Corrente, Stella-Jones
In our poll, we asked IR professionals how they have changed their approach to investor days over the last three years. Here is a selection of responses, broken down by different subject areas.
‘Pre-pandemic, investor days skewed to more traditional presentations based in New York hotel conference rooms. During the pandemic, I ran a fully remote, virtual, day-long investor day that incorporated media content. Post-pandemic, we now need to take the hybrid approach, including making the in-person element sufficiently worthwhile to warrant travel’
‘This year’s event will be live-streamed, with Q&A via the web. There will be more graphics and videos, including drone video content. In addition, we are using a creative agency this year whereas it was previously 100 percent in-house’
‘We switched from mainly virtual to bringing back site visits and an interactive flair to the day’
‘More use of hybrid events so we can cater to on-site and online investors’
‘I recently joined as head of IR, and will be doing a capital markets day before the first year is out. The key change will be in tailoring content. Capital markets days had previously been a bit of a brain dump of info, and lacked the punch of new information and key messages. That will change for the next iteration’
‘Our investor day has become better organized, with an increasing number of our senior management team participating and more institutional attendance’
‘We hosted our first formal investor day last year and will look to make incremental improvements, such as making the day more interactive and potentially including video or a client panel’
‘The company and business are today more dependent on external phenomena such as the macroeconomy, consumer confidence and market situation than on our own corporate performance and operations’
‘Our focus is on management telling a coherent story and the CFO providing credible, medium-term financial KPIs’
‘We continue to run a few hours of presentations and hands-on breakout sessions featuring recent products and technology, followed by Q&A’
‘No material change. Still fully virtual, allowing analysts to come on video to ask questions’
Whether holding a hybrid or fully virtual investor day, expectations have been raised for the online experience. Companies need to ensure the format and content remain engaging for those joining remotely. Typically, that means a shorter investor day, with more concise presentations and elements, such as video, to break up the event. Meanwhile, the technology platform should provide a seamless way for online attendees to register, join on the day and interact at key moments, especially during Q&A.
In our poll, we asked how companies are incorporating digital elements into investor days. The results show that including video content, selected by 69 percent of respondents, and conducting hybrid Q&A (60 percent), where questions are taken both in person and online, are now mainstream options. Most firms also include a video-stream of the event for online attendees (54 percent), underlining the importance to investors and analysts of seeing executives when they deliver strategy and answer questions.
A quarter of respondents say they make use of feedback surveys, while 17 percent create a branded microsite and a small proportion – just 6 percent – incorporate interactive polling. One respondent notes that his firm’s investor days are held only in person, and so have no digital elements.
For LSEG's investor day last November, the IR team developed a video showing interviews with partner organizations, such as Microsoft, Barclays and HSBC. ‘We created collateral that cost a bit and was a big lift on top of everything else, but which is now used throughout the business,’ says Riviere.
Other videos used on the day helped to bring to life products still in development. ‘Back in November last year, we were still 12 months from commercializing these products, but we had a lot in the lab, so to speak,’ explains Riviere. ‘So rather than just talking about the things we were trying to do, we showed some demos of how they could really change the way people worked, and that got us a lot of engagement.’
Of course, one of the most crucial elements of any investor day to get right is the Q&A section. We asked IR professionals to rank the methods they find most useful for anticipating questions for an investor day.
The top result, selected in first place by 46 percent of respondents, is informal conversations with investors and analysts. Next comes reading sell-side analyst notes (15 percent of first-choice votes and 29 percent of second-choice votes), followed by perception or feedback surveys.
Rather than just talking about the things we were trying to do, we showed some demos of how they could really change the way people worked
At LSEG’s recent investor day, the company made more than 20 corporate representatives available over the course of the event. They took part in presentations, breakout sessions and more informal interactions, such as a dinner on the first night.
Riviere says involving a wide variety of business leaders has many benefits: it helps build personal relationships, displays organizational confidence and exposes divisional managers to what investors are interested in. But a lot of companies are nervous about letting that happen, especially if a glass of wine is involved.
‘I’ve never had a problem,’ Riviere says. ‘I only really have two rules of engagement: one, don’t waste your energy doing down competitors – just talk about your own business; and two, don’t give any forecasts. If you stick to those two very broad and easy-to-remember rules, then all that investors want to hear you do is talk about your background and experience, and what you’re excited about in the business. That’s a pretty safe set of areas to discuss.’
Peregrine Riviere, LSEG
Once the investor day is over, it’s time to take stock and see whether your key objectives have been met. As with IR activities more generally, there is no one way to measure the effectiveness of your investor day – several factors will feed into the evaluation. But to gain an idea of how companies think about this area, we polled IR professionals on the topic.
The results show that a post-event feedback survey is viewed as the top measurement tool by 27 percent of respondents, followed by the quality of post-event analyst notes (20 percent of respondents) and attendance numbers (18 percent).
While stock price, quality of Q&A and senior management feedback come lower down in terms of the top-ranked success metrics, they all receive a number of votes as either the second or third-ranked option, showing they are also viewed as important yardsticks.
A further element, mentioned in the comments to the survey, is informal conversations with your investors and analysts. Here, it’s useful to check in with any ‘doubters’ among your audience to see whether they have changed their perspective. The number of conversions to ‘believers’ can act as another measure of success.
Stella-Jones viewed analyst sentiment following its event as a key sign its message had been well received, with the release of new three-year guidance leading to two price target increases of 9.5 percent and 3 percent. ‘When judging the success of your event, it’s important to see appreciation for the format and experience,’ says Corrente. ‘But a key marker is whether our guests walked away with the narrative we were looking to share about our business.’
She says one way for companies to boost their reach after an event is via smart use of digital content: ‘It’s become more important to leap on social or digital channels to share news of the event, to make it shine and ensure it has legs.'
She adds that modern investor days generate a lot of valuable content that can be repurposed, from the main recording of the event to bespoke video. ‘There are lots of ways to create content, generate visibility and stretch that return on investment,’ she notes.
When judging the success of your event, it’s important to see appreciation for the format and experience
At their core, investor days still fulfill the same basic function they always have for IR teams. But the way they are delivered, the types of content they involve and the expectations of audiences have undergone significant shifts.
Companies may face familiar challenges, such as maximizing attendance, content development and preparing for Q&A. The way they approach these issues, however, has had to change now that nearly all events are hybrid or fully virtual.
Some digital elements are now mainstream, according to our poll: webcasts, video content and hybrid Q&A. While these take extra planning, preparation and budget to deliver, they both enhance the on-the-day experience and provide collateral for post-event communications.
As the digital tools available to IR teams develop, the way investor days are produced will keep evolving. We wish you all the best for your next investor day, and look forward to seeing how IR teams continue to innovate with this key vehicle for investor communications.
