Recent articles

ESG

How should equity investment managers engage with ESG?

Oct 23, 2018
Jack Aldane
How should equity investment managers engage with ESG?
ESG standards weigh ever-heavier on the minds of equity investment managers. According to Andreas Posavac of investor relations platform Ipreo, lightening the load requires proactive engagement with the trend by issuers prepared to wade into the market to speak to investors. He says considering the kind of governance shortfalls that activists quickly pick up on is crucial, but that integrating this with clear ESG defi...
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Shareholder targeting & ID

Foreign investors too negative on Japanese equities

Oct 23, 2018
Jack Aldane
Foreign investors too negative on Japanese equities
Foreign investors underestimate the return on Japanese equities after selling more assets in 2018 than at any other time in the past two decades, according to a statement by UK investment management firm Kames Capital. Markets have turned bearish on the country’s stocks as fears of a global trade war intensify, pulling the TOPIX Index down 3.1 percent despite attractive earnings and valuations....
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Regulation

IR30: A look back to August 2001 – Reg FD hits IR

Oct 22, 2018
Jack Aldane
IR30: A look back to August 2001 – Reg FD hits IR
As Betsy Pisik wrote in 2001, IROs who make small talk with an analyst may end up making big trouble for their firm. ‘In these increasingly litigious days, even the most innocuous statement could be construed as material information,’ she wrote in a cover story for IR Magazine of the same year, entitled Open & Shut: Showdown with Lawyers over RegFD. So bega...
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Case studies

How to deal with employees in times of crisis

Oct 22, 2018
Jack Aldane
How to deal with employees in times of crisis
When a company takes a knock to its share price, gaining an investor’s point of view on the contributing factors is paramount, says Martin Ziegenbalg, executive vice president and head of investor relations at Deutsche Post DHL. When your employees also happen to be shareholders in their company, IROs must find ways to strike a balance between impartiality and transparency. Ziegenbalg gives his view on wh...
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Buy side

Are Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) a danger to the stock market?

Oct 19, 2018
Jack Aldane
Are Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) a danger to the stock market?
Exchange Traded Fund (ETFs) are increasingly present in institutional investors’ portfolios. Kirst Kuipers of BlackRock says this is because they offer diversified access to markets and because they are cheap and easy to trade. But the popularity of ETFs has caused an overwhelming amount of investment to represent a comparatively small volume of shares in the market. This mismatch risks exposing the...
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Activism

Unilever: How key-man risk destroyed investor trust

Oct 19, 2018
Oliver Schutzmann
Unilever: How key-man risk destroyed investor trust
One of the world’s largest, most-respected companies has just received a very public humiliation from its shareholders, providing a timely reminder that no matter how large the organization, no matter how charismatic the leader, no matter how effective the management team, all companies must answer to their shareowners.  Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company, maker of much-loved global brands s...
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Regulation

ISS and CII lobby against proxy adviser bill

Oct 18, 2018
Ben Maiden
ISS and CII lobby against proxy adviser bill
The Council of Institutional Investors (CII) and ISS have stepped up their lobbying efforts against proxy adviser reforms with the US mid-term elections looming next month. The groups have launched a website that opposes federal legislation HR 4015 and encourages voters to urge their senators not to vote for the measure, which has already passed the House of Representatives. The bill would require proxy advisory firms to register with the SEC. Registered firm...
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