American IR beauties

It was once again an evening of triumph for Covidien at this year’s IR Magazine Awards – US, which took place on March 21 at Cipriani in New York. The medical equipment supplier, which topped the charts in 2011 and 2012, sustained its pole position in the IR Magazine US Top 100 rankings this year, and took away its third consecutive accolades for best overall investor relations program in the large-cap category, best in sector – healthcare and best IR professional for its IRO, Coleman Lannum.

The grand prix in the mid-cap category was snatched up by California-headquartered semiconductor company Broadcom for the second year running, while the small-cap best overall investor relations program and best IR professional prizes were claimed by awards newcomer ViroPharma and its IRO Robert Doody. Jeff Chastain, Noble Corp’s vice president of investor relations (see full profile), marked another remarkable debut by winning the best IRO award in the mid-cap category.

As the list of winners over the following pages shows, however, there were few surprises in the latest US top 10 rankings, dominated by Covidien and a quintet of regulars – Broadcom, Danaher, Honeywell, Intel and Qualcomm – apart from the spectacular entrance of NextEra Energy in fifth position.

The results are determined by an independent survey of nearly 700 investors and sell-side analysts.

Covidien

RANK: 1

Awards
Grand prix for best overall investor relations program – large cap

Best IR professional

Best in sector – healthcare

What the investment community says
‘Cole Lannum has an amazingly comprehensive IR program, with his executives readily available at conferences and roadshows’ – online survey

What the company says
‘Inner knowledge of – and intimacy with – what the company’s actually doing is paramount. Because of that, investors appreciate getting a quick simple answer rather than having to wait a week or even two hours to get the information they request’ – Coleman Lannum, head of IR

Intel

RANK: 2

Awards
Best financial reporting

Best investment community meetings

Best in sector – technology (large cap)

What the investment community says
‘Intel is an excellent company: it calls you back even if you have a sell recommendation on it and the enormous IR team is impressively knowledgeable’ – sell side

What the company says
‘We’re fortunate that the leadership team at Intel takes its stewardship of the relationship with our owners as an important part of its job. While we have a competent senior IR team with a broad range of experience, there is no substitute for that investor-to-executive interaction’ – Mark Henninger, IR director

DANAHER

RANK: 3

Awards
Best use of technology for investor relations

Best in sector – diversified industrials

What the investment community says
‘Danaher is happy to put you in touch with divisional heads and holds excellent meetings’ – sell side

Honeywell

RANK: 4

Awards
Best IR by a CFO – large cap

What the investment community says
‘Honeywell’s CFO, David Anderson, explains the business better than any other CFO in the industry’– online survey

What the company says
‘In 2013, we’re planning to host a multi-city, week-long China-based investor event, and then add to that another event in one of our eight high-growth regions, following the same format’ – Elena Doom, vice president of IR

NextEra Energy Resources

RANK: 5

Awards
Best in sector – utilities

What the investment community says
‘NextEra’s website is outstanding: not only is it well organized and easy to navigate, but there are also useful links to videos, with interactive maps describing various parts of the business’ – sell side

JPMorgan Chase & Co

RANK: 6

Awards
Best IR by a CEO or chairman – large cap

Best crisis management

Best in sector – finance & insurance

What the investment community says
‘JPMorgan was very upfront about the trading blunders. Jamie Dimon held his hands up and immediately took responsibility for making amends by meeting investors and facing up to the issues’ – buy side

FedEx

RANK: 7

Awards
Best sustainability practice

Best in sector – transport

What the investment community says
‘There is a prompt response to all questions, however tricky, from the IR team at FedEx. There is also a willingness to communicate with investors at conferences’ – buy side

What the company says
‘For the past year or so, we’ve been taking questions from StockTwits on our quarterly conference calls. We always try to be the best in class and use state-of-the-art technology’ – Mickey Foster, vice president of IR

Broadcom

RANK: 8

Awards
Grand prix for best overall investor relations program – mid-cap

Best in sector – technology (small & mid-cap)

What the investment community says
‘In addition to insightful meetings, Broadcom has good disclosure in its reporting, timely updates and a consistent, clear message’ – sell side

What the company says
‘We’ve recently made great strides in the level of transparency in our financial disclosure. We’ve also seen the stock-based compensation rate of our staff come down, following comments from investors that we were running above the rate of some of our peers’ – Chris Zegarelli, senior director of IR

Express Scripts

RANK: =14

Awards
Best investor relations during a corporate transaction

What the company says
‘We release our earnings after the market closes and hold our conference call the next morning before the market opens. That way, we can speak to analysts or investors to get their initial reaction to the release, and adjust our conference call script’ – David Myers, vice president of IR

Wyndham Worldwide

RANK: 16

Awards
Best IR by a CFO – mid-cap

Best in sector – leisure & media

What the investment community says
‘Wyndham takes its investors seriously and has developed a great investor outreach program. The CEO, CFO and IRO are all open with us and there is absolutely no stonewalling’ – buy side

What the company says
‘Taking the IR function to this next level of measuring our return on investment is what we need to be prepared to address. Until we can start measuring our return, we will be unable to really leverage the value of the function as a profession’ – Margo Happer, head of IR

Noble Corp

RANK: 25

Awards
Best IR professional – mid cap

What the investment community says
‘Jeffrey Chastain has done a great job in the IR role. I get very good feedback from investors on his knowledge and credibility’ – online survey

What the company says
‘I’ve increased the number of conferences and the number of roadshows of the non-deal variety. It was a global effort, and it paid off. Our ownership in Europe increased almost 30 percent, and that’s a nice compliment from the standpoint of the effort’ – Jeff Chastain, vice president of IR

Calpine

RANK: 36

Awards
Best IR by a CEO or chairman – mid-cap

What the investment community says
‘The chief executive at Calpine has an awesome knowledge of the industry’ – sell side

ViroPharma

RANK: =50

Awards
Grand prix for best overall investor relations program – small cap

Best IR professional – small cap

What the investment community says
‘Bob Doody is one of the most responsive and straightforward IROs in the industry. He recently put on an excellent analyst day, providing an in-depth review of all aspects of the firm’ – online survey

What the company says
‘We treat every investor and analyst exactly the same, regardless of his/her particular take on our company. If you called the biggest bear analysts we’ve ever had, who might have been bearish for as long as I’ve known them, they’d probably tell you we’re the nicest guys they’ve ever dealt with’ – Robert Doody, assistant director of IR

Maxim Integrated Products

RANK: =82

Awards
Most progress in IR

What the investment community says
‘In the past year, I have had much greater access to Maxim Integrated Products. This is probably due to the company taking on an additional investor relations officer. The IR responsibilities are now divided between the two of them so I get a greater level of detail’ – independent analyst

What the company says
‘We’ve developed an app in-house, with which we capture all the history of our meetings with each investor and monitor what its level of activity has been in our stock, and also the nature of our dialogue: is it consistent, has it changed, are we addressing that investor’s needs?’ – Venk Nathamuni, managing director of IR

Cyberonics

RANK: =104

Awards
Best IR by a CFO – small cap

What the investment community says
‘I like [Cyberonics CEO] Dan Moore, he’s a stand-up guy. Together with Gregory Browne, they make a great team’ – sell side

What the company says
‘I believe social media are a bit of a hydra-headed monster. It’s very easy to disseminate things on social media but a lot harder to refute them. I make it an absolute practice of not talking on message boards or anything like that’ – Greg Browne, CFO

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust

RANK: =140

Awards
Best IR by a CEO or chairman – small cap

What the investment community says
‘The CEO really views shareholders as partners in the company and treats us with respect, talking around the strategy and numbers in an intelligent and forthcoming way’ – buy side

What the company says
‘Our CEO Jon Bortz attends a lot of non-deal roadshows, because we found the initiative of just being out there to be out there, speaking to investors outside the context of a deal or equity raising, is generally well met’ – Raymond Martz, CFO

ServiceNow

RANK: Unranked

Awards
Best investor relations for an IPO

What the investment community says
‘The CEO of ServiceNow really understands analysts, his market and how to communicate complicated stuff. All this probably explains why the IPO went so well’ – sell side

SiliconMotion

RANK: N/A

Awards
Best investor relations by an Asia-Pacific company in the US market

What the company says
‘If there’s an 800lb gorilla in the room, we want to address that as quickly as possible. Sooner or later [any negatives are] going to come out and we would rather be informed of the issues than have to play catch-up’ – Jason Tsai, director of IR and strategy

BM&F Bovespa

RANK: N/A

Awards
Best investor relations by a Latin American company in the US market

What the company says
‘If you compare our commitment in terms of time, it’s two thirds for foreign investors compared with domestic investors’ – Claudio Avanian Jacob, IR officer

Roche

RANK: N/A

Awards
Best investor relations by a European company in the US market

What the investment community says
‘Between San Francisco and Basel, Roche does a great job of IR. It holds frequent investor events and roadshows, and takes part in many conferences’ – online survey

What the company says
‘At Roche, we make sure communications and investor dialogue go both ways; one good example is investor feedback on capital allocation preferences and dividend’ – Thomas Kudsk Larsen, head of IR for North America