Investor Relations

IMPLEMENTING BEST PRACTICES IN INVESTOR RELATIONS 141hosted by an investment bank. This involves a number of companies visitinga city for a day. Investors in that city will get to meet with severalcompanies in one day. Among the advantages of this format, one can citethe following:Sector-focused agenda,Efficient use of time,Lower travel and logistics costs.3.6.15 ConferencesInvestment banks and brokers organize thematic meetings throughout theyear to present companies to their clients and allow them to meet managementduring brief one-to-ones and break-out sessions.Such events, some of which are prestigious, can be a good way to makethe company more visible to the international financial community. TheIRO should closely examine whether the conference is a real opportunityfor the company and assess the quality of the portfolio managers who willbe in attendance. It is possible that the institutions in question do not correspondto the target profile, or that they will not be represented by decisionmakers, in which case top executives will not necessarily need to bepresent.The participation of different issuers will on the other hand be an opportunityfor IROs to see presentations given by the competition, to meet withtheir Investor Relations counterparts, and to get ideas on how to improvetheir financial communications.Small and midcaps that are hardly or not covered at all by sell-sideanalysts are sometimes solicited by Investor Relations event–organizingspecialists to participate in conferences for a fee.3.6.16 Analyst and Investor DaysThese events, also know as “capital market days,” and “open days,” arecatering to the sell-side and buy-side analysts and to portfolio managers. Animportant part of the Investor Relations program, they are typically organizedat the issuer’s initiative, without involving a broker and can be particularlyrewarding when they are planned far enough in advance. Also, theyhave been proven to increase the number of analysts covering a stock.Compared with the cost of a week-long roadshow with the CEO andCFO, they can be a cost-effective way of getting a message across to a widegroup of investors and analysts.