Number of investor conferences is down but investor days have become more common
Nine in 10 respondents report being on a roadshow in 2016, the same percentage as the previous year, according to the IR Magazine Global Investor Relations Practice Report 2016.
During 2016, IR teams held half a roadshow less than the previous year (7.2, down from 7.7 in 2015) and spent fewer days on the road (14.3, down from 15.2).
Other IR events remain a consistent fixture in respondents’ schedules over the past 12 months: the number of investor conferences is slightly down (from 7.5 to 7.4) on average, investor days have become slightly more common (up from 0.8 to 0.9) while site visits are less popular than they were in 2015 (down from 4.5 to 4.1).
Investor conferences are the most common form of investor engagement for North American companies, which on average attend 7.1 conferences, go on 6.7 roadshows and host 3.5 site visits. While both investor conferences and roadshows increased in number in 2016, roadshows are up by 0.7 and conferences by just 0.2. Site visits are down on their 2015 figure of 3.5 in 2016 compared with 4.2 the previous year.
Roadshows are the most common investor event for European companies to engage in. Europeans also went on more roadshows over the past year than North American or Asian companies, averaging 10.7 across the year, amounting to 16.5 days on the road.
More investor conferences were attended by European than North American companies, but both regions hosted the same number of site visits, representing the fewest across all regions. By comparison with 2015, all forms of investor engagement have seen a reduction in activity. In 2016, European companies typically went on 1.3 fewer roadshows and spent 3.8 fewer days on the road. They also attended 0.7 fewer investor conferences and hosted 0.3 fewer site visits.
There was a fall in participation at investor events for Asian companies in 2016, where IR teams have typically dropped one roadshow from their calendar, going on 5.1 roadshows as opposed to 6.1 in 2015. The total average days spent on the road has dropped just 0.2 to 13.3 days, however.
Investor conferences and site visits have also seen a fall in Asian IR participation. Investor conferences are down from 10.1 in 2015 to nine in 2016, while Asian companies have hosted, on average, half a site visit less in 2016 than they did in 2015. Despite these falls, Asian companies still attend more investor conferences and host more site visits than companies from any other region.
