Small-cap companies held most investor days in past year

Although participation in physical, in-person events – roadshows, investor days, site visits, investor conferences – tends to increase with market cap, research from IR Magazine shows that there is a ‘notable exception to this rule.’

Small-cap companies held the most investor days during the past year, according to the Investor Events research report.

At an average 1.1 investor days over the past year, small-cap firms are notably ahead of their larger peers. Mid-caps held an average 0.4 investor days, large caps an average 0.6 and mega-cap companies an average 0.8 investor days.

The research looks at both in-person and virtual activity from the company side as well as canvassing the views of the investment community. It finds that although site visits are the most highly rated overall, investor days come top for the buy side, with more than two thirds giving them a score of eight or above. These events are also the only ones where the buy side has a more positive view than the sell side.

And small-cap companies lead on these valuable events even in the Covid-19 virtual world. When larger firms cut back on such events, small-cap companies held an average of one virtual investor day in the past year. This compares with 0.3 for mid-caps and 0.2 for large and mega-cap companies.

Interestingly, just 13 percent of small-cap companies cite investor days as their most rewarding virtual event. More than half say virtual investor conferences, 35 percent say virtual roadshows and just 1 percent say virtual site visits are most rewarding.

‘Virtual investor events are generally rated lower by investors than in-person events,’ write the report authors. ‘While a strong majority of investors give all virtual events a positive score of above five, notably fewer give scores of 8+ than do for in-person events.’ But ‘virtual investor days have the highest number of investors giving an above-neutral score of five.’

Click here for more information and to download your copy of the Investor Events research report. As well as looking at how many investor events companies across different cap sizes and regions held over the past year, it looks at what did and didn’t work in the eyes of the investment community, offers insights into investor thinking with selected comments on investor events and takes a look into the future of the in-person investor event calendar.