IROs head out alone for almost a quarter of roadshows

Over the past 12 months, 23 percent of IR departments left their senior management at home to head out on an IR-only roadshow, according to new research to be published in the winter 2017 issue of IR Magazine.

But this trend is largely led by European firms, where 34 percent of IR teams went on the road alone. This figure is at least double the number seen among Asian or North American companies.

When it comes to market cap, the likelihood that the IR team will lead a roadshow increases with cap size, rising from 15 percent at small caps to a high of 32 percent at mega-cap firms. 

Of course, senior management still takes the lead on the majority of roadshows, with the CFO proving most popular, going on almost half (47 percent) of roadshows globally, according to the 750 respondents that make up the Global Roadshow Report 2017.

Interestingly, despite many IROs highlighting the benefits of showing off not just the CEO and CFO, but other members of senior and divisional management – to highlight your ‘deep bench of management talent’ as James Buckley, senior vice president of IR and corporate communications at Clean Harbors, told IR Magazine in 2014 – few actually go on the road.

In fact, globally, ‘other’ senior management hit the road just 7 percent of the time, as do divisional management. And while European firms might be hot on IR-only roadshows, these companies are least likely to vary from the CFO-CEO-IR formula on the road. Instead it is Asian companies that buck the trend, with ‘other’ senior management going on 19 percent of roadshows and divisional management on 15 percent.