Increased corporate access and a preference for in-person roadshows: The view from the sell side

The sell side has found corporate access work increasing over the past two years – despite an increase in the number of companies arranging access themselves, according to the Corporate Access research report published in the summer 2021 issue of IR Magazine.

The report finds that seven in 10 sell-side respondents say the volume of corporate access work has increased in their organization over the past two years, with almost a quarter reporting a strong increase. ‘It is also made clear that this trend existed prior to the Covid-19 pandemic,’ say the report authors.

The trend is most prominent in Europe where 92 percent of sell-siders have seen an increase in corporate access in the past two years – with 71 percent saying it had been increasing prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. In North America the trend drops slightly with Covid-19, as prior to the pandemic more sell-side respondents were witnessing an increase than have done so over the course of the whole past two years.

Many of these sell-side respondents also engage with the buy-side corporate access teams that IROs themselves are increasingly contacting direct. Globally, just over half of sell-side respondents say they engage with these buy-side teams but regionally, engagement is highest in Asia: almost two thirds of Asian sell-siders saying they work with buy-side corporate access.

Although the report finds that direct contact now accounts for the arrangement of more than a third of IRO meetings and four in 10 meetings for investors, direct engagement remains second to corporate access organized by the sell side.

What the sell side wants

Another recent research report published by IR Magazine looks at what companies and the investment community find most rewarding when it comes to roadshows, site visits, investor days and investor conferences.

Splitting these into in-person and virtual, the Investor Events report notes that among in-person events (taking in pre-pandemic responses), the sell side rated roadshows most highly – and notably higher than the buy side. ‘More than eight in 10 sell-siders rate in-person roadshows at eight or above, compared with just under half of the buy side,’ write the researchers.

Generally, the sell side takes a more positive view of almost all investor events – both in-person and virtual – compared with the buy side. In fact, ‘investor days are the only in-person event where the buy side has a more positive view than the sell side,’ note the report authors. On the virtual side, post-pandemic, ‘the sell side is [generally] more favorably disposed toward [virtual events], with the exception of virtual site visits, which the buy side rates higher than the sell side.’

Overall however, the investment community rates virtual events lower than it does for in-person, though the report notes that ‘unlike with in-person events, there are no great differences in how the sell side and the buy side rate virtual events.’

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