By Dennis Walsh, Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media
On Monday, Houston-based Francesca's Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: FRAN) announced that it had fired its chief financial officer, Gene Morphis, after discovering he had “improperly communicated Company information through social media.” This case highlights how important it is for all companies to have a clear social media policy in place and to educate top executives on their roles and responsibilities as company spokespeople.
Mr. Morphis was very active on Twitter, publishes a personal blog, and has public profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook. Mr. Morphis spoke freely about his duties as CFO of Francesca’s in his Facebook status updates, which were open for public viewing. In one example he states that he just completed a roadshow for a secondary offering, which appears to have been announced via press release prior to the post.
Read More
IR Program Planning,
Disclosure,
Reg FD,
Sharon Merrill Associates,
Investor Relations Agency,
Disclosure Policy,
Social Media Policy,
IRO,
Social Media,
Investor Relations,
Socialize IR,
Investor Relations Firm
By Maureen Wolff, President and Partner
Companies planning to go public need to be able to hit the ground running on the day of the IPO pricing with an investor relations program. In order to prepare, Sharon Merrill President and Partner Maureen Wolff provides tips on what to do before and after the S-1 filing in the videos below.
Read More
Investor Presentation,
IR Program Planning,
Disclosure,
Strategic Messaging,
Investor Relations Agency,
Investor Meetings,
IR Website,
Guidance,
Board Structure,
Disclosure Policy,
IPO,
Investor Relations,
Earnings,
Investor Relations Firm
“View from the C-Suite: What Management Wants from Investor Relations” was the theme for NIRI Boston’s April event. For a chance to listen to a panel of C-level executives speak candidly to a room full of investor relations professionals, I quickly reserved a car and “zipped” over to the meeting. The panel featured three esteemed executives from the region, including Richard F. Pops, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Alkermes; David D.R. Hargreaves, Chief Operating Officer, Hasbro and Donald Muir, Chief Financial Officer, Lionbridge.
The audience was eager to hear what these top executives expect from a strong IR team. The panel consistently reinforced that IR professionals are most effective when they are knowledgeable, well organized, involved in strategic planning, and are able to stand up to management to ensure best practice.
Read More
IR Program Planning,
Board Packages,
Corporate Access,
Board Communications,
Investor Meetings,
NIRI,
Disclosure Policy,
Shareholder Communications,
Social Media,
Investor Relations,
Earnings
“But social media for investor relations won’t work for my company!”
The use of social media is radically changing the way our society communicates – and the investment community is no exception. But many investor relations officers still refuse to use social media as an IR tool. I’ve heard any number of reasons why “social media for IR won’t work for my company.” Our business model is primarily B2B. The retail shareholder base is small. Our market cap is less than $500 million. My corporate counsel tends to be conservative regarding disclosure. Notwithstanding the huge volume of research that supports the use of social media in IR, I think it would be easier to land a lunch with Warren Buffett than to convince the typical IRO to set up a Twitter account.
I recently spent a whirlwind of a week focused on social media in investor relations. The NIRI Westchester Connecticut chapter invited me to serve on a panel discussion entitled, “Investor Relations and Twitter – To Do or Not to Do?” with Darrell Heaps, president & CEO at Q4 Websystems (@darrellheaps), Dan Dykens, co-president at Meet the Street (@meetthestreet), and Doug Chia, senior counsel & assistant corporate secretary at Johnson & Johnson (@dougchia). I was pleased to see that more than half the room had at least been on Twitter. Two questions seemed to preoccupy the audience: “what should we know about using Twitter,” and “how can we use it as part of an effective IR strategy?”
Read More
Disclosure,
Strategic Messaging,
IR Website,
Crisis Communications,
NIRI,
Disclosure Policy,
Twitter,
IRO,
Media Relations,
Speaking Engagements,
Shareholder Communications,
Social Media,
Investor Relations,
Monitoring,
Investor Relations Firm
Sell-side research has undergone profound structural changes during the past decade with far-reaching implications affecting the quality of the research and how research is generated, sold and compensated. Decimalization, Regulation FD, unbundling of trading from research and the hedge fund “brain drain” have all negatively impacted sell-side profitability, product quality and small cap coverage in today’s age of diminished sell-side research.
Decimalization. When the SEC required exchanges to narrow their bid-ask spreads from one-sixteenth, or $0.0625, to $0.01 per share effective in 2001, the profitability of trading floors collapsed amidst tremendous spread compression. While working on the sell-side, I recall hearing many times over, “when we get a trade we can all hear the cash register ring.” After decimalization, I never heard this again. Sell-side boutiques, historically adequately compensated for their research with large bid-ask spreads, now struggled to stay afloat. They reduced staff levels and often swapped higher-priced, seasoned analysts for less-experienced and less-costly researchers.
Read More
Hedge Fund,
Disclosure,
Reg FD,
Sell-side Research,
Targeting,
Investor Meetings,
Sell-side Coverage,
Disclosure Policy,
Shareholder Communications,
Investor Relations,
Earnings
The term “shareholder activism” can sometimes send a shiver down your spine and conjure up all kinds of unwelcome events – unhappy shareholders, proxy contests, shareholder proposals, 13D filings and withhold vote campaigns, to name just a few.
I recently moderated a NIRI Virtual Chapter webinar on “Shareholder Activism Trends.” The participants, consisting mainly of IROs at mid- and small-cap companies, were polled on several questions. The first question was, “Do you have a detailed plan in place for dealing with shareholder activism?” The majority answered “no.”
It may not be feasible to have a detailed plan for dealing with a threat that can take so many different forms. The lawmen and bandits who fought it out at the infamous O.K. Corral in 1881 had no idea how the showdown would play out – and neither will you if your company becomes an activist’s target. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared. Here are four steps.
Read More
Corporate Access,
Shareholder Meeting,
Board Communications,
Annual Meeting,
Shareholder Activism,
Proxy Season,
Proxy Fight,
Proxy Access,
Crisis Communications,
Board Structure,
Disclosure Policy,
Shareholder Communications,
Investor Relations,
Activist Investors
For months leading up to your S-1 filing, you probably have been singularly focused on creating that massive tome. You have spent significantly more time with your lawyers and auditors than with your own family -- and you cannot even begin to imagine a time when you won’t be spending every waking moment with your bankers. So now that you’ve left the long nights (and great food spreads) at the financial printers behind, it’s time to focus on investor relations. You need to hit the ground running with IR as soon as your company prices its offering, so here are 10 “to do” items before then:
1) Develop your IR website. The IR website must be ready to go live on the day of your IPO pricing. It is most cost-effective to hire an IR website hosting provider, which will develop your site and aggregate content such as news releases, SEC filings and stock data. You also need to prepare additional content for your site such as “Frequently asked Questions,” management biographies and fact sheets. Your website is arguably the most important vehicle you will have to communicate with investors, so make sure it has everything that investors need and expect.
Read More
IR Program Planning,
Targeting,
Board Communications,
Investor Relations Agency,
Investor Meetings,
Presentation Training,
IR Website,
Guidance,
Sell-side Coverage,
Disclosure Policy,
IRO,
IPO,
Shareholder Communications,
Investor Relations,
Investor Relations Firm
