Janet Dignan, founding editor of IR Magazine, reflects on two decades' experience of IR for the magazine's 20th anniversary
Anyone who’s been around long enough to remember the launch of IR magazine – or Investor Relations, as it then was – should be gaining a bit of perspective by now. And perspective must be one of the most valuable commodities in today’s market. Trouble is, it’s not for sale, or even available to borrow.
Perspective was also valuable in 1988. After all, that was only a year on from October 1987’s Black Monday, a day when dire predictions were about as commonplace as today.
There were other similarities, too. The 1980s was the decade of the leveraged buyout, or the excessively leveraged buyout to be more accurate. Lots of chickens came home to roost as junk bonds finally turned out to be, well, junk. And Japan was in full flight. It may have gone quiet for a long time in the interim, but who just bought that chunk of Morgan Stanley? And where did Lehman’s fixed-interest business fetch up?
What goes around comes around – and the accumulation of wisdom isn’t always as marked as one might like in the aftermath of major market crises. But that’s because the life expectancy of whizz-bang bankers isn’t quite long enough for them to gather enough reusable experience. That much-needed perspective continues to elude them.
The investor relations officer, on the other hand, lives a little longer in this world. As a result, the IR profession does accumulate wisdom. That’s why the recession following Black Monday’s market turbulence gave the IR function a real boost (as did the fallout after the dotcom boom). I remember one analyst in the really good times complaining to me that companies ‘were letting their share price do their IR for them.’ That’s just the flip side of saying companies need to pay extra attention to IR when tough times are taking their toll.
As for us at IR magazine, we’re looking forward to next year. Our history is one that demonstrates the seven-year itch at work. We launched in 1988. Seven years on we grew restless in London, so in 1995 we launched our North American office. Seven years after that, in 2002, we took the plunge with a sister magazine: Corporate Secretary.
So maybe there will be another sea change in 2009; right now your guess is as good as ours. But if there is, do keep it in perspective. That is your job, isn’t it?
