Janet Dignan, founder of IR Magazine, introduces this year’s report
When one thinks back over recent IR Magazine Awards in Canada, corporate names like Agnico Eagle, Canadian Pacific, CN, Stantec, WSP and others all come to mind. And all those companies appear in this year’s report. So what’s changed?The answer is plenty. But most of the changes are relatively small moves up and down the charts. This year’s winner of the award for best overall IR by a large-cap company is WSP, which was seventh in this category last year. Second-placed Canadian Pacific was the winner last year. And third-placed CN was also third last year.So what is it that these companies are getting consistently right? The way to find the answer is to consider the comments made by members of the investment community when explaining the reasons for their choices. These consistently focus on responsiveness and availability.Take these remarks made about winner WSP. ‘WSP Global is both responsive and proactive in its IR. It sends information before I ask for it. It knows what the Street wants, is well prepared and issues press releases at the right time. A great management team, good website and awesome communication – a great overall package,’ says one sell-sider.And from a buy-sider: ‘The IR team at WSP Global does a good job with the quarterly financial reporting and helps make the management team accessible to investors. The CEO presents very well and is readily available with the IR team.’Of Canadian Pacific, one sell-sider says: ‘Canadian Pacific has very strong availability and flexible schedules, willing to engage at any hour. Also, very helpful in facilitating corporate access.’ And CN is said by one buy-sider to be ‘… ahead of the curve compared with many other industrial companies. There is lots of literature out there about it, as it is well covered, and it also shares lots of information itself.’But what about the individual IR professionals scoring well in the best IRO category? The top three here are at CN, Canadian Pacific and Sun Life, and one buy-sider has no doubt which quality he most admires about CN’s IRO: ‘Paul Butcher is very transparent. The way he organizes the calls and the financials: transparent, transparent, transparent.’Responsiveness and availability score well for Canadian Pacific’s Maeghan Albiston, as is evident in this comment from a sell-sider: ‘Firstly, Maeghan Albiston is very responsive, which for an analyst is the most important thing. Secondly, when needed, the appropriate person in the team is made available to me, which I value highly.’And third-placed Sun Life is admired for its IRO’s ability to deal with the more difficult aspects of communication: ‘Yaniv Bitton from Sun Life provides detailed responses and is open to discussing complex themes.’There are many more revealing comments made to our researchers by analysts and investors about high-scoring companies. And it’s clearly the case that all the companies whose names appear in this report stand out for the quality of their investor relations. They all deserve our respect and praise.
