As the new reality of “say on pay” votes by shareholders settles in, a guiding strategy for companies should be to have your own say. Investor relations professionals (and senior execs) need to learn how to communicate more clearly and proactively on pay and governance. By last week, 20 U.S. companies had lost (failed to get [...]
Among several bits of wisdom shared by Jane McCahon last night at a NIRI Kansas City meeting is the idea that investor relations, at its core, still has the mission of building a base of long-term investors who believe in your company and its future. McCahon is VP of corporate relations for Chicago-based Telephone and Data [...]
As an investor relations person, I love this time of year. I enjoy working on clients’ year-end reporting, of course – but it’s also a time when I get to experience IR from the other side, as a member of the audience. Believe me when I say I am a small shareholder of a few [...]
The April 2011 Harvard Business Review is “The Failure Issue” – with lots of good stories and lessons. In one, former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco talks about his run-in with activist investor Carl Icahn – and Icahn responds (both available here). Two different views emerge, as you might guess, from the corporate raider who calls Blockbuster “the [...]
National Investor Relations Institute President and CEO Jeff Morgan follows up on Warren Buffett’s public comments about communicating with investors (see “Buffett takes a poke at IR”) today in NIRI’s IR Weekly e-newsletter. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO, you may recall, told CNBC in a recent interview that as an investor he doesn’t need to be [...]
March 11, 2011 – 12:35 pm
Our prayers go out for the Japanese people after the massive quake and tsunami. From the Wall Street Journal page live-blogging the quake comes one small vignette that may amaze investor relations colleagues: Calbee, a snack food maker that is 20% owned by PepsiCo, had its IPO today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The WSJ [...]
Some folks in the investor relations community are bothered – even angered – by Warren Buffett’s recent verbal jabs at IR people and the profession as a whole. March 15 Update: a few additional thoughts here. Maybe I’m thick-skinned. I don’t think we need to feel threatened by what the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway says about [...]
February 27, 2011 – 4:05 pm
Warren Buffett’s latest letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, posted Saturday, rewards the reader with pithy quotes on nearly everything in business, as have so many of his annual reports in the past (a 34-year archive is here). Most of us wouldn’t suggest that our CEOs write a 25-page shareholder letter, but neither do we [...]
February 9, 2011 – 12:12 pm
While shoveling snow this morning – yet again! – I was thinking about how quick the media are quick to hype the latest “blizzard” or “worst winter since the Ice Age.” But should investor relations blame weather for missed earnings or a chill in sales? It’s not an easy question, but IR people (like the [...]
January 29, 2011 – 1:41 pm
As a non-lawyer I’ve wondered why so many companies – regardless of where they do business or actually are located – incorporate in Delaware. The little state that is barely a whistle-toot on a fast New York-to-Washington train ride practically makes an industry of playing host to corporations. More than 850,000 companies make their home [...]
