Investor relations
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Investor relations (IR) is a set of activities which relate to the ways in which a company discloses information required for regulatory compliance and good investment judgment to bond and/or shareholders and the wider financial markets.
Most public quoted companies globally now have a dedicated IR officer or manager who looks after the company's IR activities and who deals with buy-side and sell-side investment professionals or other investors wishing to know more about the company. These may include collection of information on competitors, dissemination of information via press conferences, one-on-one briefings, IR section of company websites, company annual reports.
The IR function must be aware of current and up-coming issues which the organisation may face, and which may have an impact on the organisation. In particular, it must be able to assess the likely impact or reaction of any announcements (or any research reports issued by Financial analysts) to be made on the share price of a company. It will have top-level access to the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman or President of the corporation to ensure that the image of the corporation is maintained in a coherent fashion.
Due to the potential impact of legal liability claims awarded by courts, and the consequential impact on the company's share price, IR often has a role in crisis management of, for example, product liability issues, industrial disasters.
Historically IR has concentrated on the distribution and dissemination of financial information relating to the company, but the function increasingly includes the transmission of information relating to intangible values such as the company's policy to corporate governance and its wider corporate social responsibility.
There are many good examples of a modern investor relations firms. One that incorporates Web 2.0 principals is the Zangani Investor Community. One that specialises in proxy solicitation and proxy fight battles is InvestorCom, while one that specialises in using quantitative research and qualitative research for shareholder campaigns is CT financial.
The professional body for Investor Relations in the U.S. is the National Investor Relations Institute known as NIRI. In the United Kingdom, the recognised industry body is the Investor Relations Society, while in Australia the professional body is the Australian Investor Relations Association.
