Best investor event: How Kerry Logistics won in Greater China

This profile is taken from the report Award-Winning IR – Asia 2018. Click to download your copy now.

Putting on an annual three-day reverse roadshow that brings investors together at different sites – last year in Thailand and Taiwan – means logistics alone are a challenge.

Thankfully, Kerry Logistics Network is well positioned for the job. The Hong Kong-headquartered company has more than 32,000 employees spread across 53 countries and territories, with a business spanning everything from international freight forwarding to supply chain solutions, seaport management and more. Still, it notes that along with geographical challenges – operations are spread across Asia – finding a date and location for the event and making that work with investors’ travel budgets and policies all makes for a potential logistical nightmare.

But what the team has pulled off every year since it went public in 2013 is definitely a hit with the investment community. With a goal to ‘provide investors with a broader understanding and a new perspective on our resilient business model, proven execution capability and on-the-ground experience’, the location and an event theme are all chosen by the IR team. This year the theme was ‘resilience and revisit’, addressing Kerry’s ‘resilient business model and consistent growth amid the changing dynamics in the e-commerce and logistics landscape’ compared with the firm’s last Thailand and Taiwan roadshow three years ago.

The company describes the annual event as a ‘team effort’, with the IR team working with local management to develop the itinerary and on-site visit plan, using investor feedback from previous events to help build the schedule.

While the firm says the annual event is popular, the visit to new operations in Taiwan was of particular note this year. ‘Our debut of pharmaceutical logistics operations in Taichung intrigued investors as we are one of the few Asia-based specialists in the field,’ explained the company in its awards submission, adding that ‘sell-side analysts who participated in the roadshow maintained or reiterated a rating of buy/outperform, which showed confidence in our business outlook in the region and our expansion plan in Taiwan.’