Reputation and Valuation

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never mend well."

Warren Buffett said of reputation, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it."

And Sebastian Bach once observed, "Park Avenue leads to Skid Row."  

Sadly, it has been my experience that most IROs see reputation as the exclusive domain of their corporate communications colleagues. While I realize that some of this has to do with corporate structures (I was lucky - when I was on the corporate side, I had the luxury of overseeing both IR and corp comm*), I do think some of this resistance comes from the fact that IROs are increasingly coming into the position with a finance background rather than a communications background and, therefore, may not fully understand the direct relationship between reputation and valuation.

As you'll see in this piece by Business Insider, this is a relationship that all who contribute to their organization's investor relations effort must understand and appreciate.  In this case, what you don't know can hurt you.

* And, for the record, I still hate when people say, "When I was..." I hope you'll forgive me for this transgression. 

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