European investment community set to vote in new IR leaders
The restructuring, refinancing and reorganizing happening all across Europe during the last 12 months looks set to have a similar reshuffling effect on the European IR elite, who will gather in London next week for the IR Magazine Europe Awards 2012.
Of the 16 pan-European awards to be handed out at the prestigious event, close to three quarters will change hands this year, as will the majority of the 24 best in sector awards.
BASF of Germany has the most nominations going into the awards, with eight overall, closely followed by Allianz, also of Germany, and Novo Nordisk of Denmark. All three will battle it out for the grand prix for best overall investor relations by a large-cap company, alongside Unilever of the UK.
Unilever also features in another hotly contested category: best IR in the food & beverages/tobacco sector, where it faces stiff competition from Nestlé of Switzerland, Danone of France and Carlsberg of Denmark. Unilever and Nestlé have now competed for the best in sector prize for three years in a row, with the bragging rights on the previous two occasions going to the Swiss chocolatier.
Six individual awards are up for grabs at the event. Short-listed individuals for best IRO, best IR by a CEO and best IR by a CFO are split into two market cap sizes: large-cap companies and small & mid-cap companies. The best IRO for small & mid-cap companies award, for instance, will see Valeria Leone of Pirelli, Anders Mohr Christensen of Christian Hansen and Geoffroy Raskin of Umicore compete with last year’s winner, Oliver Stratmann of Lanxess.
Once again, this prestigious event is being held at the London Hilton on Park Lane. On the evening of Tuesday, June 26, a total of 142 unique companies from 20 European countries will compete for 60 awards, including best corporate governance & disclosure and best use of technology for investor relations, as well as best in sector and best in country.
During the day, the leading IR professionals from many of these short-listed companies, past and present, will gather for the IR Magazine Euro Leaders Think Tank, sponsored by Bloomberg, Citi, HSBC and Ipreo. The topics on the 2012 program include tackling short-termism and the IR opportunities in Asia. Four sessions in total will feature a panel of IR heads from the likes of Diageo, BASF, Siemens, Land Securities and LVMH.
As usual, the IR Magazine Europe Awards are decided solely on the votes cast by the European investment community. This year, Fox Insight and Mary Maude Research independently surveyed more than 720 European portfolio managers, buy-side analysts and sell-side analysts, electronically and by telephone.
The votes cast by investors and analysts also determine the Euro Top 100, IR magazine’s ranking of the top companies for IR in Europe. Full details of the awards and rankings are available in IR magazine’s Investor Perception Study, Europe 2012, published shortly after the awards event.
