Sell-Side Insights and Wisdom
Recently, our firm sat down with the director of research of a boutique investment bank that provides high-quality research primarily on small-cap stocks. Throughout the course of our conversation, Mr. X (name redacted to protect the innocent!) provided several words of wisdom for investor relations professionals and public companies, so I thought I’d share them here. My thoughts are noted in italics.
- Don’t add an analyst/portfolio manager/investment professional to your email distribution list unless said analyst/portfolio manager/investment professional has asked to be added. Nobody likes spam.
- Respond to inbound inquiries in a timely manner. This may seem like “no duh” advice, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t follow it. The rule of thumb seems to be 24 hours, but I try to respond before the end of the same business day.
- Keep analysts updated with information that management has shared during investor conferences and non-deal roadshows, even if your team travels with an analyst from another firm. It goes without saying (although I’m going to say it anyway) that you should never keep analysts, or anyone else for that matter, updated on previously undisclosed material information.
- Guidance is helpful in that it provides a framework for reported results. Anything is fine, including expected ranges in dollars, anticipated growth rates and ongoing trends. We didn’t discuss annual versus quarterly guidance, but a bit of research will show that there is little consensus (pun intended) on guidance practices.
- Many investment professionals have compliance restrictions on how they interact with social media. While this may be true at the office, investment professionals are people too, and can access social media to their heart’s content at home. So don’t stop using social media as a vehicle for dissemination, but understand that you likely need to keep using more traditional channels as well.
- Don’t respond via press release to Seeking Alpha articles. We all know that content on Seeking Alpha has the power to move a stock in either direction, but Mr. X believes responding publicly via press release looks defensive. Each situation is different, but in general, I tend to agree.
— Laurie Berman, lberman@pondel.com
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