The winners of our awards-by-research categories are identified by in-depth research and any publicly traded company is eligible to be considered. This survey is the only one of its kind to go directly to the investment community, via a combination of an electronic survey and one-to-one telephone interviews, canvassing the opinions of the people who matter to you most.
Best in sector
IR Magazine has been building investment community databases over the past 30 years. As part of the updating process, listed companies are contacted every year for details of the professionals who currently cover their stock. These details are combined with Ipreo’s list of US investment community contacts to produce a total of around 50,000 investors and analysts.
IR Magazine then conducts an electronic survey of buy-side and sell-side analysts and portfolio managers. The electronic survey typically receives 200 individual responses from the investment community. These responses then go to Mary Maude Research for initial analysis. The research firm determines what will constitute a representative sample, weighted for industry sector.
The telephone survey then gets under way. The researchers conduct in-depth interviews with an additional 250 portfolio managers and analysts across the US. Many of them participate in the study year after year, but there is always a healthy proportion of new respondents each year as well. As the research progresses, the sample is adjusted to ensure appropriate weightings are maintained.
Once the survey stage of the research is completed, the final analysis is undertaken. The companies with the highest scores make the short lists for the awards categories, and the points are further analyzed to identify the best exponents of IR by sector. The independence of our research is crucial to the integrity of the whole awards program, so IR Magazine sees the results only once the research is complete. This ensures a transparent, independent set of results that IROs can trust as a valuable benchmarking tool.
IR Magazine receives the results in December and contacts the short-listed companies to give them the good news. The short list is then published to the entire IR community the month before the event.
And finally… the winners are announced. Usually hosted as a black tie gala in New York, this year the awards turned virtual and winners were revealed during the online awards ceremony.
The Investor Perception Study – US 2020 report is now available to available IR Magazine subscribers. If you're not a subscriber you can download a free sample of the report here.