Corporate Access

This week we have summarized the recent IR Magazine Corporate Access report. Click here to view the full IR Magazine report.

IROs

Arranging meetings

The most common form of corporate access included the sell-side in the conversation. Globally 40% of meetings were held purely with the sell-side, with 7% including both the buy and sell-side. By contrast, in Asia 18% of meetings were held with both the buy- and sell-side. The second most common meeting type was directly with buy-side investors, and IROs in North America had the highest percentage of these types of meetings (42%). The report also looked at meetings arranged by market cap.

Satisfaction

The report shows that an IRO’s satisfaction level is highest for meetings directly with investors, with 93% feeling satisfied and a third of respondents giving their satisfaction a rating of 10/10! Meetings with the sell-side corporate access desk were also considered successful with 79% of IROs feeling satisfied with the meeting. Meetings arranged with another third party left IROs feeling the least satisfied, with 11% unsatisfied.

BUY-SIDE

Arranging meetings

Globally less than 25% of the buy-side surveyed have a corporate access desk. This figure is higher for North America and Asia at 30% and 29% respectively, but is far lower for Europe at just 6%. In terms of arranging buy-side meetings, the report showed that the highest percentage of meetings in North America were arranged directly with the company (45%), whereas in Europe and Asia the highest percentage were arranged with the sell-side corporate access desk (56% and 45% respectively). This means that on a global scale, meetings arranged with sell-side corporate access desks are the most common, closely followed by those arranged directly between the buy-side and the company.

Taking meetings

The report shows that the buy-side by far favors being contacted directly by the company with 24% saying they were more likely to take a meeting and an additional 49% responding that they were much more likely to take a meeting if they were contacted by the company directly. This equates to a 73% positive response in total, with the next highest being a total of 45% who said they were more likely or much more likely to take a meeting if it were organized by their own firm’s corporate access desk. A higher percentage of the buy-side said that they would be less likely to take a meeting if contacted by a third party than those that would be more likely to take a meeting. Therefore, we would encourage companies to contact the buy-side themselves for the best chance for success in scheduling a meeting.

On a regional basis, interestingly 16% of European buy-siders say direct contact would make them less likely to take a meeting, compared with none in North America and just 4% of participants from Asia.

SELL-SIDE

Engaging with buy-side corporate access

When asked about engagement with buy-side corporate access, the sell-side were split 50:50 in North America and Europe between those who do and those who do not engage with buy-side corporate access. However, in Asia almost two thirds of the sell-side said that they do engage with buy-side corporate access.

The sell-side also provided significant insight into how corporate access has and is changing. We will bring you more information on these changes and those mentioned by IROs and the buy-side next week.

If you would like any advice on corporate access and how to engage with the buy or sell-side, please get in touch with our team at Miranda IR and we would be happy to help. 

The report is based on findings from the IR Magazine Global Investor Survey carried out in Q4 2020 and the IR Magazine Global IR Survey in Q1 2021.

350 IROs were surveyed, coming from North America (45%), Europe (30%), Asia (13%) and the rest of the world (12%). They represented a wide range of sectors and were relatively evenly split between small, mid- and large cap companies, with 11% representing mega cap firms. The 149 investors who took part came from North America (37%), Europe (24%), Asia (35%) and the rest of the world (4%) and were slightly weighted towards the buy-side with a 56%:44% split with the sell-side.

For the purposes of the report, market cap was defined as follows:

Small cap <$1bn

Mid-cap $1bn-5bn

Large cap $5bn-30bn

Mega cap >$30bn