The Audience Of The Investor Relations

“Whether we are talking about venture capital for start-ups, LBO’s for mature companies, or the management of large public companies, the essence of relationship investing is the same: it’s having large-stake investors and supplying them with information about and some measure of influence over corporate strategic decisions.”

Neil Minow – Corporate Library

Investor Relations in simple terms refers to the broad range of ways in which a public company communicates with its investors and the market in general. The aim of our services is to help our clients target primarily its top 20 institutional investors that can make the difference in the share price. Companies should build strong relationships with these investors if they are seeking their loyalty and long-term commitment. In addition companies should consider the value of relationship investing and elsewhere and exploit their network of stakeholders. Successful companies are those that consistently supply the market with meaningful information that reflects an honest and accurate picture of the company’s prospects, performance and well-being. Companies who successfully follow through our advice have much greater chances to be rewarded with:

• A fair market valuation for the company

• A reasonable level of liquidity in its shares

• Increasing ability to gain access to further investment capital

Other factors play a critical role for the above objectives to be achieved, including the prevailing market and economic conditions, the corporate fundamentals and industry specific prospects and the stock free float.

The Audience Of The Investor Relation

An effective investor relations practice requires thorough knowledge of the global and local investment environment. Similarly, the communication needs of the various audiences, brokers, analysts, regulators, individual and institutional investors, employees, clients, suppliers and creditors need to be addressed appropriately with an integrated communication strategy. Equally, it is important that the investor relations department delivers the corporate messages to those critical audiences in a manner that will satisfy the information needs and add credibility to the company. For the company, those messages are anchored in its strategic direction, a subject of importance to the chief executive officer and the senior management team.

What We Do

Whatever your size, Investor Relations is a pretty complicated activity. Since IR is a marketing exercise, understanding your market – the target audience is critical to your success. Our experience in the field, particularly with the media and the investment community, allows our clients’ messages to penetrate both more effectively. Media and analyst coverage is critical in achieving the three strategic objectives of IR.

Strategic Communication

We serve as a comprehensive outside advisor to public companies – a customized service that manages information flows by implementing a strategic Investor Relations program. We speak the language of business and understand your strategic communication needs - differentiating and accentuating your company's value.

Our Investor Relations strategies focus on improving relationship investing and strengthening shareholder confidence by encouraging clarity and transparency in the entire communication process.

Yet communicating bad news is more of an art rather than a science. Companies often fall in the trap of making the classic error of not scooping the problem or reporting it promptly, thereby undermining their own credibility, which is much harder and costlier to restore in the future. Accurately delivering bad news in a way that doesn’t frighten the market is difficult, yet failing to do so might help create the conditions ripe for a public relations crisis in proportions that will be almost impossible to contain.

Focus On Delivering Value

Our clients benefit from our focus on long-term shareholder value creation. Business today needs the trust and confidence of shareholders as well as general societal trust in order to operate successfully. Our core ideology is to augment your company through the enrichment of investors.

We maintain that true shareholder value is based on your company’s long-term drivers including your capability to execute, manage credibility and uphold sustainable return. Thus all goals – increasing sales, improving customer service, streamlining operations – are mean to what should be your most fruitful end: Improving shareholder value. We support your team in communicating with the capital markets to achieve strategic goals. Working closely with you, we deliver substance to financial audiences.

We help clients manage these expectations by adding credibility and value to their corporate image through the following tactical services:

• Company Announcements: Good communication is the cornerstone of an effective investor relations program. A designated consultant will assist you in drafting an announcement or press release relating to the normal business course. In exceptional cases we will meet with you in your offices at no additional cost. The announcement review will assist you in preparing outstanding announcements, which add credibility to your organization and value to your intended audience.

After carefully analyzing hundreds of corporate announcements in Cyprus throughout the past three years, we have found that a great deal of ambiguity and inconsistency exist in announcements. That finding is fully consistent with our Investor Opinion Survey which we conducted last May. Specifically, when we asked the respondents to evaluate whether “companies offer adequate explanation and documentation in their CSE filings” only 6% though that they did, 26% though they were average and 68% thought they were poor.

Announcement reviews include discussions with company officials charged with this responsibility. In some cases we may request a telephone interview with the CEO or CFO in order to discuss them matters of importance.

After carefully reviewing the announcement we will also translate it in English. We assure you that your announcements will be clear, specific and in publishable form, as we master the business language both in Greek and English.

• Web Content Structure and Review: After carefully analyzing the Investor Relations content of some of the most reputable Fortune 500 companies, we have come up with our own list of items and contents that a corporate web site must include in its Investor Relations section. Accessibility, navigation and speed are among the qualitative elements that corporate web sites must possess.

• Assisting the Board and the CEO: Credibility at the top plays a decisive role for the investment decision-making. Through our consulting services boards and CEO’s can get communication assistance tailored to their needs, whether live interviews, speeches and presentations.

• Annual Report: Typically, the Annual Report is the starting reference pint of any market participant. Business prospects and developments and financial reports must be consistent with stated corporate strategy. Equally, non-financial information plays an important role in giving the market a meaningful description of corporate prospects and present conditions.

• Annual General Meeting: We review of the contents of the Annual Report, the Chairman’s Report, the Board of Directors Report and assist in the preparation of the Letter to Investors. Consultation on the presentation content and facilitation in its preparation is also part of our commitment

In addition, preparing the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the CEO on possible questions during the AGM is most essential.

• Analysts’ Meeting: The Company should organize at least one meeting with the analysts every year. Ideally, this meeting should follow the announcement of interim results or annual results, in the case of holding two meetings per year. Aiding the preparation of the presentation as well as consultation on how to highlight key corporate achievements is part of our responsibilities.

In our Professional Opinion Survey 79% of the respondents felt that “established communication with investors and analysts” was very poor.