Issuers may be ‘taken by surprise’ by the increase of direct engagement, asking more of IR departments
With the implementation of Mifid II just months away, new statistics suggest that issuers and investors may not be aligned on how much the regulatory change will transform corporate access.
Over three quarters (77 percent) of investors think that once Mifid II comes into effect on January 3, 2018, more meetings between institutions and issuers will be arranged directly, according to data provided by corporate access platform ingage. Just under half (47 percent) of the investors surveyed say they expect to rely much more on software to help manage the corporate access process themselves.
While 47 percent of corporates surveyed also expect to see an increase in direct engagement, Michael Hufton, managing director at ingage, says that many issuers could be ‘taken by surprise if the behavioral shift by investors does prove to be as big as institutions are suggesting’.
In an IR Magazine webinar earlier this year, Lyndsay Wright, director of IR at William Hill, said that she expects the demands on IROs will grow and that IR teams may need to make the case with their management teams for increased resources.
Another area the alternative corporate access platform looked at is feedback, which makes up part of the company’s offering. Over half of the issuers surveyed by ingage say they are currently unsatisfied with the traditional intermediated feedback system.
This echoes comments that IR Magazine has received in the past. ‘Feedback is one of the main reasons ultimately, why companies go out – they want to hear what their shareholders think,’ Hufton told IR Magazine back in 2015.
