Road Shows | Street Talk | Dix & Eaton

Measuring IR

Last Friday, Hill & Knowlton’s Anil Dilawri asked a fair question, “Is there such a thing as too much investor marketing?” - which got many all a’twitter (pun intended) about how many meetings is too many meetings.

While I am tempted to ramble a bit how investor marketing is much more than non-deal road shows, I’ll stick to the topic at hand. Personally, I think one meeting is one too many if a clear and distinctive value proposition isn’t presented.  Seriously, you’re wasting everyone’s time if you make no compelling argument as to why now is the right time to own your company’s equity. In other words, it’s the quality of the message, not the number of meetings held. So, when measuring your investor marketing efforts, don’t ask “what’s too much?”, ask yourself :

- Is the message being understood?
- Are analysts and investors not surprised?
- Are analysts and investors enthusiastic?
- Is IR effective in a crisis? In capital raising?
- Are management/board well informed?
- Does the IRO have credibility?  Who do management and investors turn to first?
- Is the IRO an effective corporate governance sentinel?

Would love to hear what you ask yourself (or what is being asked of you)?

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What’s in a name?

This morning, I came to an interesting conclusion. When building a non-deal road show (or analyzing investor perception study feedback, etc.), a fund’s “investment style” has all but become a meaningless data point. Why? Because everyone is a value player in today’s market.

Think about it. How many yield options are there for “Yield” funds? What isn’t a reasonable price for a “GARP” investor? Sheesh, even Hedge funds are billing themselves as value investors (can you say “wolf in sheep’s clothing”?).

If you really want to get to the heart of a fund’s investment style, look at its portfolio turnover data - the lower the turnover, the longer the view taken by the fund manager and, thus, the higher a priority you should make them.

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