Just under half of the companies in this year’s IR Magazine Canada Top 50 are new entrants, with 23 companies included in the list that did not feature in the top 50 for 2021. The highest new entrant is Stantec in eighth place, while four other companies that were outside the top 50 last year feature in the top 20 highest-placed companies this year – Brookfield Asset Management, Finning International, Endeavour Mining and BlackBerry.
The Canada Top 50 features in the IR Magazine Investor Perception Study – Canada 2022 and is compiled from the results of research into this year’s IR Magazine Awards - Canada, held in Toronto last month. Investors and analysts in Canada were asked to name the highest-performing companies in a number of categories and the results of this are combined to provide a table of overall IR excellence.
investor relations (mid-cap)
at the IR Magazine Awards -
Canada 2022
Canadian Pacific Railway remains the top company for IR in Canada. The transport company gained a total of 369 points in the research process, more than a hundred points more than second-placed Shopify. Special attention was given by investors to the way Canadian Pacific’s IR team handled the merger with Kansas City Southern, commenting that ‘dealing with a major merger, CP Rail’s IR excelled and was active in staying in front of people’.
Shopify, the number two company for IR in Canada this year, topped the categories for best financial reporting and best use of technology for IR. Receiving praise for its disclosure, Shopify ‘has a very informative IR website, with presentations and webcasts going back several years,’ notes one analyst, while it is ‘consistent in its reporting, and always uses appropriate metrics, all the way back to the IPO,’ says another.
'Honest answers'
Third-placed CN and fourth-placed Agnico Eagle Mines were both in the top four last year. The IR team at CN is seen as ‘accessible’ and gives ‘honest answers’ while being ‘accommodating and willing to spend time telling the story’. Of IR at Agnico Eagle Mines, one analyst says: ‘The sector requires lots of hand-holding, and Agnico guides expectations well.’
As well as being the highest-placed new entrant this year, Stantec is the highest-placed mid-cap company in the table. It is also the best-performing company overall for sustainability communications, with one buy-sider remarking: ‘Stantec is hitting all the themes, especially in environmental and social. There is a focus on workplace diversity, and it is doing great things’.
Other much-improved companies in the top 10 include sixth-placed Intact Financial Corporation, up 33 places from last year, and WSP Global, which is seventh this year having placed 34th in 2021. Three in five of the companies from places 21 to 50 did not feature in the Top 50 in 2021. Of the remaining 12 companies in this bracket, nine have seen their position in the rankings fall from last year.
The IR Magazine Investor Perception Study – Canada 2022 is the result of research conducted among members of the Canadian investment community in Q4 2021. The full report is available to IR Magazine Essentials and Advanced subscribers here.
