Financial market survey 2011 summary

Financial Market Survey 2011

May 2011

Copyright © Box IR

Box IR’s Financial Market Survey - 2011
Executive summary
In order to raise the knowledge on how the financial
industry view different IR activities Box IR conducted Other
14%
a survey during April and May 2011, in which
financial market professional answered questions about
Portfolio
the investor relations work carried out by Swedish managers
listed companies. Although the survey was largely 44%
conducted during the height of the Q1 reporting
season, interest in the survey was above expectations Analysts
and 106 people in total answered the questions, 42%
representing a 20 percent response rate. The
respondents were distributed according to the chart
opposite.

The survey consisted of 10 questions all in all. Answering alternatives were made up of both multiple
choice as well as text answers, which rendered a number of interesting remarks.
On the following pages we present a summary of the answers to the survey, but let us begin with some
basic conclusions and a few interesting statements.

 The respondents were asked to name the three most important factors for making an investment
decision or take up coverage of a company and CSR ended up at the bottom of the list. When asked
directly about the importance of CSR it is clear that these issues weigh relatively light. If the
survey had not been anonymous, the answers probably would have been a little more politically
correct.

 The most important investor relations activities are one-on-ones, earnings presentations and the IR
web while social media, despite the explosive growth, still has a long way to go before being
adopted by the financial market professionals (partly due to the fact that Swedish companies are
not very active in terms of using social media for IR purposes).

 Access to management is important, but it is crucial that it conveys the appropriate message.

"Why does IR enter into "closed periods"??? Isn’t part of the job to
communicate in a way that this is not needed!?"
Analyst

"Good IR is characterized by accessibility, prompt response and good company
knowledge combined with an understanding of how the stock market works."
Analyst

Box IR, Norrmalmstorg 14, 111 46 Stockholm | Phone: +46 8 21 41 00 | info@boxir.se | www.boxir.se

Brief summary of the conclusions from the survey
Accessibility is important, but not enough
With regard to the level of IR activities and the management access, it is
important to consider the difference in the resources companies spend. Among
the Large Cap companies the IR department usually consists of several people,
while the IR work in Mid and Small Cap companies is largely handled by the
CEO or CFO. Generalized, our survey shows the following:

Every other analyst regards
 Large Cap
management access as poor Good level of IR work, but poor management access. Half of the analysts
think it is difficult to access the management of Swedish Large Caps.
 Mid Cap
Good access to management, but one out of three thinks that the level of
IR work is inadequate.
6 out of 10 regard the IR  Small Cap
work by Small Caps as High management accessibility, but IR work well below par. Six out of
insufficient ten think that the IR effort is not up to standard.

”IR spend and ambition reflect quality.”
Analyst

CSR not very important
CSR – is it only ”politically For obvious reasons CSR issues are often mentioned as key investment criteria
correct”? and today there are a large number of funds with an ethical focus on the Swedish
market. No doubt that this is at least "politically correct", but when the financial
market professionals are asked anonymously CSR issues ranks low. This is
illustrated by the fact that only three respondents stated that CSR issues are very
important to their investment decisions.

Scale 1-5 where 1=not important and 5=very important
How important are CSR
issues for your investment 5 3
decision/evaluation of a
company?
4 19

3 39

2 25

1 17

This picture is reinforced when respondents are asked to specify three criteria for
a company being an attractive investment. Only two respondents have CSR
among their top three investment criteria.


Annual reports, not returning value for money
A quarter of a billion SEK areIt is a well-known fact that Swedish companies spend large resources on their
spent on annual reports... annual reports, in monetary terms in the order of a quarter of a billion SEK for the
public companies (see Box IR’s Annual IR Survey 2010). With a growing
importance of the IR web, the annual report’s relevance for the financial market
…but less than half regard it continues to diminish. Less than half of the respondents to our survey regard the
as an important IR tool annual report as important or very important.

Although the PDF is still the most common format of the digital version of the
annual report, it has become increasingly popular in recent years to create a more
advanced Flash or HTML-based version on the website. These types of products
rank at the low end when the financial market ranks a number of IR-activities.
Scale 1-5 where 1=not important and 5=very important

One-on-ones 4,19
Report presentations 4,16
Informative IR web 3,97
Roadshows 3,78
Capital markets days 3,75
Webcasts 3,71
HTML-based annual … 2,81
News letters 2,57
Social media 1,76

The HTML based annual HTML or Flash based annual reports are even, by some analysts, met with a
report is rejected strong dislike, which is evident in the following statement from an analyst:
”All companies that have their annual report on its website in any
other format than PDF should IMMEDIATELY STOP THIS. I am
not interested in any Flash based version which is completely user-
unfriendly. PDF is the best, period.”

2 out of 3 regard the IR web The IR web is an important channel for the financial community to access
as important or very information from public companies. This is evident when asked how they prefer
important to receive information. 70 percent of the financial market professionals rank the
IR web as important or very important.
Low interest in social media It is also evident that the financial market still has very low interest in IR via
social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc. These are on the other hand relatively
new channels and Swedish companies are certainly not among the frontrunners in
using these new information channels for IR purposes.
One-on-ones when the Investors rank one-on-ones and earnings presentations as their favorite IR
market gets to choose activities conducted by public companies.


What characterizes good and poor IR?
”Accessibility, accessibility, accessibility and knowledge of operations.
MUST be part of the management team to be of interest for analysts.”
Analyst

What characterizes good IR? Accessibility 33

Knowledge about company/industry 19

Openness 12

Timely information 11

Transparancy 8

Consistency 5

Management access is When the financial market professionals in their own words describe what
important, but good IR also characterizes good IR, accessibility is mentioned most often. However, none of
requires… the respondents believe management access alone is sufficient. That is clear when
we summarize the questions regarding IR level and management access above.
”Open and honest communication. Being prepared to discuss the
company’s weak areas.”
Portfolio manager
…openness, transparency It is apparent that the market demands openness, transparency and honesty in the
och honesty, as well as financial communication. But in order to excel in IR, thorough understanding of
thorough financial market the financial markets as well as good knowledge, not only about the company, but
understanding.
also about the business environment as a whole and the competition are equally
important.
”Thorough understanding of the work and perceptions of analysts and
portfolio managers. Good knowledge about the company as well as
competitors.”
Portfolio manager
Poor IR is mainly perceived as being the opposite of the above, however a few
statements are well worth quoting:
Holding back on bad news is ”A lot of info in good times, hardy any in bad times. Information hard to
not appreciated interpret, only conveyed by employed communicators that is emotional or
of the type ‘corporate bull shit’.”
Portfolio manager
”Limited information, unrealistic targets.”
Analyst
As well as boycotting critical ”Another bad habit is when IR boycotts critical analysts who don’t
analysts maintain a buy rating on the share.”
Portfolio manager
”Only pouring coffee during presentations; cannot do a good company
presentation by themselves. Unfortunately, in order to fulfill the female
quota, they have put in a ‘blonde’ as IR and it is not sufficient!”
Portfolio manager


What is most important for the investment decision?
Professional investors and analysts regard share liquidity and profit growth the
most important criteria for investing or initiating coverage.

Name three criteria in order Market cap, liquidity 40
for a company being
Prospects, growth 34
interesting to start covering
or make an investment Management 22
Investment case 19
IR, communication 18
Valuation 18
Business concept, strategy, … 17
Key figures, financial 11
Track record, history 10
CSR 2

IR as important as In this context it is worth mentioning that IR and communication is considered as
investment case or valuation equally important as valuation or investment case.

Please contact us for
a more in-depth
presentation!


About Box IR
Box IR is a financial communications firm specializing in investor relations and strategic corporate
communications. Our offer is based on advice from senior consultants with vast experience in equity
trading and research. Combined with our experience in communications, public relations and media
relations, we can offer an integrated range of services built on industry knowledge and first-hand capital
markets experience from some of the leading Nordic Investment Banks.

Box IR is owned and operated by Mikael Zillén and Tomas Öqvist. With over
30 years joint experience in the financial sector and over 10 years of financial
communications, our vision is to become the leading communications agency
for companies and organizations who demand excellence in financial
communications, combined with financial expertise.

In order to be cost effective and being able to offer our customers a full range of services Box IR has
formed strategic partnerships with a network of specialists, including Sjö & Berg for graphic design, print
production, etc.

Short about the founders:
Mikael Zillén holds a B.Sc. in Business and Economics from the University of
Stockholm. He has since 2005 Worked with financial communications and
investor relations, both as self-employed and as senior consultant at Citigate
Stockholm. Mikael has a solid Financial Market background from investment
banks including SHB, Nordea and Danske Bank, where he during 15+ years
worked in institutional sales. Mikael has had a large number of major Swedish
and US institutions as well as hedge funds as clients and also has experience
from several IPOs.

Tomas holds a B.Sc. in Business and Economics from the Stockholm School of
Economics and has more than 15 years of first-hand Capital Markets
experience as equity analyst at Carnegie and Alfred Berg including several
years as top ranked within the Software & Services sector. Tomas has been
advisor and speaking partner to large Swedish, European and US institutional
clients and also participated in a number of IPOs and M&A deals. Since 2007,
he has worked as a consultant within financial communication and investor
relations.

For further information please call us on +46 8 21 41 00 or visit our website.


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