The IR Society Best Practice Awards
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF THE BEST PRACTICE AWARDS 2023
Promoting best practice for 23 years
The 23rd Annual IR Society Best Practice Awards
These prestigious Awards celebrate the achievements of companies demonstrating their commitment to delivering best-in-class investor engagement. The Awards, which are judged by an independent panel of esteemed investor relations and investment community professionals, comprise both Self-entry and Voted Awards.
Congratulations to the IR teams demonstrating best practice in investor relations across the following five categories:
- Best Communication of Sustainability
- Best Innovation in IR
- Best Corporate Website
- Best Annual Report
- Best IR Programme
For the Voted Awards, which recognise excellence in individual and team investor relations, the IR Society is delighted to have worked again in partnership with Institutional Investor, as it seeks to address a wider audience and voting universe. Awards were presented for:
- Best Newcomer to IR (individual)
- Best IRO (individual)
- Best Overall Company IR (company)
- Best Investor Engagement (investor)
Winners we're announced at the Best Practice Awards Dinner, which took place on Tuesday 21 November at Royal Lancaster, Lancaster Terrace, W2 2TY and was hosted by comedian, Mark Watson.
Congratulations to all our 2023 winners. You can view the winners on each of the awards pages above and look through the photo highlights.
2023 Awards Highlights
Fundamentally, investors want honesty in corporate reporting, and in this very difficult year, more than ever that's what people will want, will respect and will be looking for.
Companies should be entering these awards. If you're not already proud of your reporting, well, improve it so you are. If you are already proud of your reporting, then of course, you should be entering
Paul Lee
Chair of the Judging Panel
Our sponsors
As always, we would like to thank our sponsors and suppporters, without whom so many of our activities would not be possible.
Ever Sustainable is a sustainability strategy consultancy that helps businesses harness the value generation multiplier of sustainability. By joining the dots between sustainability and growth, Ever endeavours to move sustainability beyond risk reduction to uncover new commercial opportunities. We strive to bring bold ideas into the boardroom to inform both day-to-day decision-making and long-term transformation. Our expertise ranges from robust research and materiality assessments, to defining and implementing sustainability strategies that are underpinned by decision-useful KPIs. We’re also passionate communicators who excel in distilling urgent ideas into clear messages that clients can deliver to stakeholders with confidence.
For 54 years, Institutional Investor’s highly recognised survey-based research has produced an independent evaluation of quality across key markets and stakeholder groups – with rankings for top global sell-side research teams and corporate executives setting the industry standard, with a global presence spanning Europe, Emerging EMEA, Asia Pacific, North America and Latin America.
Institutional Investor conducts independent research surveys with global investment and sell-side professionals who evaluate and determine the best performing CEOs, CFOs, IROs and IR Programs across these regions. The survey results provide an independent performance validation of IR activities and Executives relative to specific sector and country peers based on multiple assessment criteria and metrics. The market intelligence identifies best practices and empowers greater productivity and efficiency through targeted IR team collaboration and directional guidance for C-Suite investor outreach. It also enables IR to deploy these actionable insights to optimise and improve its strategic positioning based on the direct feedback and assessment by specific stakeholder demographics and prospects.
www.institutionalinvestor.com
IDX (formerly Investis Digital) is a global communications solutions company. Through a multi-faceted, multi-disciplined approach, IDX makes websites and digital content, and leverages data-driven insights to transform industries, empower companies, and amplify narratives that matter. Their singular mission: to identify untapped potential, elevate stories worth sharing, and empower companies to waste less and grow more. With a distinctive blend of content, media and technology expertise combined with an “always on” service model, their clients know that their digital assets and brand reputation are secure and protected 24/7 by a dedicated team of 500+ digital experts across eight global offices. Head to idx.inc to learn more.
Ever Sustainable is a sustainability strategy consultancy that helps businesses harness the value generation multiplier of sustainability. By joining the dots between sustainability and growth, Ever endeavours to move sustainability beyond risk reduction to uncover new commercial opportunities. We strive to bring bold ideas into the boardroom to inform both day-to-day decision-making and long-term transformation. Our expertise ranges from robust research and materiality assessments, to defining and implementing sustainability strategies that are underpinned by decision-useful KPIs. We’re also passionate communicators who excel in distilling urgent ideas into clear messages that clients can deliver to stakeholders with confidence.
S&P Global Market Intelligence is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), the world’s foremost provider of financial information and services to the capital markets. Trusted by more than 2,500 corporate issuers, our market-leading data and expertise drive workflows across your organization so you can effectively monitor the markets, obtain, and retain shareholders, manage stock valuation, and decrease volatility — all from a trusted source dedicated to investor relations. For more information, visit Issuer Solutions | S&P Global Market Intelligence (spglobal.com).
S&P Global has been providing essential intelligence that unlocks opportunity, fosters growth, and accelerates progress for more than 160 years.
Congratulations to all nominees!
J.P. Morgan’s Corporate & Investment Bank is a global leader across banking, markets and securities services. The world’s most important corporations, governments and institutions entrust us with their business in more than 100 countries. The Corporate & Investment Bank provides strategic advice, raises capital, manages risk and extends liquidity in markets around the world.
www.jpmorgan.com/global
ingage designs, builds, distributes and licenses specialist Investor Relations software in a subscription model. Building on traditional IR CRM, the ingage platform is a comprehensive, modern IR software suite that helps companies run a world-class IR function, internalise a direct investor engagement capability, and deliver unique insight and reporting to IR, Executive Management and the Board.
A decade from launch, we’re privileged to supply IR software to quoted and pre-IPO companies in 15 markets around the world, including some 30% of FTSE 100 companies in the UK.
www.ingage.com
We empower companies to authentically convey their identity, articulate their priorities, and transparently update stakeholders on the progress of commitments. We assist in crafting and managing narratives to ensure that organisations are accurately perceived by their most important audiences.
To achieve measurable outcomes, we begin by identifying which business objectives can benefit from enhanced communication. This identification process then guides our strategic approach. Subsequently, our methodology is grounded in meticulous planning and research to ensure both relevance and robustness. Finally, our team of designers, brand strategists, consultants, writers, researchers, data collectors, and project managers, based in our London and Cape Town offices, delivers and evolves corporate stories with agreed-upon outcomes, making our approach measurable.
Our versatility extends to being channel-neutral, allowing us to convey your story through a diverse range of communication channels.
Learn more about our approach and capabilities at www.invicomm.agency
Notified is committed to making it easy for brands to create and share powerful stories with the world. Our suite of world-class IR communications solutions and our dedicated customer service team are relied upon by more than 10,000 global customers, from growing businesses and public companies to some of the world’s most recognizable brands.
We help companies effectively share and amplify their stories to investors, customers, employees, and the media with a suite of integrated solutions that includes:
- GlobeNewswire press release distribution & regulatory filing
- IR websites
- Earnings calls & webcasts
- Investor days
- ESG communications
- Whistleblower hotline
To learn more, visit Notified.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
Deutsche Bank’s Depositary Receipts team is part of the Trust &Agency Services business within the Corporate Bank. In addition to specialising in administering cross-border equity structures such as American and Global Depositary Receipts, Deutsche Bank provides corporates, financial institutions, hedge funds and supranational agencies around the world with trustee, agency, escrow and related services. The bank offers a broad range of services for a diverse set of products, from complex securitisations and project finance to syndicated loans, debt exchanges and restructurings. The bank provides commercial and investment banking, retail banking, transaction banking and asset and wealth management products and services to corporations, governments, institutional investors, small and medium-sized businesses, and private individuals. Deutsche Bank is Germany’s leading bank, with a strong position in Europe and a significant presence in the Americas and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit: https://adr.db.com
The Investor Relations Society’s mission is to promote best practice in investor relations; to support the professional development of its members; to represent their views to regulatory bodies, the investment community and government; and to act as a forum for issuers and the investment community.
Our vision is to be the focal point in the UK for investor relations practice and IR professionals and to promote best practice in investor relations generally.
www.irsociety.org.uk
H/Advisors is made up of over 1400+ consultants across 51 offices located in all the key financial markets, recognised globally for providing best-in-class strategic communications advice and counsel for international corporations.
We combine local market expertise and seamless cross-border collaboration which covers a global scale, so our clients achieve their goals. H/Advisors’ expertise extends across M&A and Shareholder Activism, Corporate Communications, Financial PR, Crisis, Change Management, Public Affairs, Sustainability, and Litigation. Founded in 2001, H/Advisors is backed by Havas and Vivendi, one of the world’s largest communications groups. We have creativity in our DNA.
H/Advisors Maitland is our London office and home to The Hub, our dedicated creative and knowledge centre that powers our practice work, focusing on data, designs and digital.
maitland.h-advisors.global/
Jones and Palmer help you to craft memorable corporate stories that provide your stakeholders with the tools to make informed long-term decisions. Whether this is through your annual report, corporate website, sustainability reports or corporate brand, we work with you to ensure your stakeholders understand your story by producing a joined-up, informed approach to your corporate communications.
Our consultancy-led approach gets us to the heart of your story, helping to structure your investment case and key messages. Collaboration across the team helps to elevate these messages through design and brand, resulting in high level, informed digital and print products.
We’re proud to have created long-lasting partnerships with over 100 PLCs on their corporate branding and communications. This relationship allows us to support you in planning and continually developing your corporate story to ensure that it aligns and evolves with your business activities year-on-year.
www.jonesandpalmer.co.uk
Powering retail investor inclusion - PrimaryBid capital markets solutions help companies access retail investors at IPO and during follow-on equity and debt fundraises with sophistication and control. But access isn’t enough. Communicating with retail effectively and in a controlled, compliant fashion is important too. PrimaryBid’s Retail IR solutions help target this growing investor audience with the right messages, leveraging our financial promotion capabilities and assurance. Retail doesn’t need to be a black box. We make Retail IR easy to access and easy to maintain communications with this vital investor cohort.
primarybid.com
Q4 Inc. (TSX: QFOR) is the leading capital markets access platform that is transforming how issuers, investors, and the sell-side efficiently connect, communicate, and engage with each other. The Q4 Platform facilitates interactions across the capital markets through IR website products, virtual events solutions, engagement analytics, investor relations CRM, shareholder and market analysis, surveillance, and ESG tools. The Q4 Platform is the only holistic capital markets access platform that digitally drives connections, analyzes impact, and targets the right engagement to help public companies work faster and smarter. The company is a trusted partner to more than 2,650 public companies globally, including many of the most respected brands in the world, and maintains an award winning culture where team members grow and thrive. Q4 is headquartered in Toronto, with offices in New York and London. Learn more at www.q4inc.com.
QuantiFire helps IROs to provide better service to investors and much better reporting to management. We do this by collecting and analysing response information from investors and analysts, as data and at scale.
Many companies struggle to identify 'new' investor names with a confirmed interest in meeting; QuantiFire's 'pre-engagement' interest research solves this problem. 'Post-engagement' we support clients with market-leading investor feedback and perception research solutions.
For investors, our service engages them as carefully targeted individuals using secure and innovative protocols that respect their time and privacy, whilst improving user experience.
For companies, we provide light-touch solutions that leverage technology at every stage, minimising hassle and maximising the quality of insights, delivered to a Board-ready standard.
Know what the market really thinks: www.quantifire.co.uk
www.quantifire.co.uk
For 54 years, Institutional Investor’s highly recognised survey-based research has produced an independent evaluation of quality across key markets and stakeholder groups – with rankings for top global sell-side research teams and corporate executives setting the industry standard, with a global presence spanning Europe, Emerging EMEA, Asia Pacific, North America and Latin America.
Institutional Investor conducts independent research surveys with global investment and sell-side professionals who evaluate and determine the best performing CEOs, CFOs, IROs and IR Programs across these regions. The survey results provide an independent performance validation of IR activities and Executives relative to specific sector and country peers based on multiple assessment criteria and metrics. The market intelligence identifies best practices and empowers greater productivity and efficiency through targeted IR team collaboration and directional guidance for C-Suite investor outreach. It also enables IR to deploy these actionable insights to optimise and improve its strategic positioning based on the direct feedback and assessment by specific stakeholder demographics and prospects.
www.institutionalinvestor.com
Visible Alpha helps IROs understand the market’s view of their companies with three levels of data: analyst data, company data and industry data. We capture the forecasts, assumptions and logic from full working sell-side models and integrate them into comparable views across analysts. This deep consensus data enables you to uncover and explore the market’s view of your company, competitors and suppliers at a level of granularity, timeliness and interactivity that has never before been possible.
visiblealpha.com
The London Stock Exchange Issuer Services platform is our digital offering, dedicated to IR teams. We are the only Exchange to give companies the ability to customise their profile page on our website, allowing them to tell their story to investors. All issuers on our market have unlimited access to the data that we offer including global ESG data, Reuters News, global deals data (covering equity, debt and M&A) and millions of sell-side research notes. Our clients can also access both institutional and retail investors through our webcasting platform SparkLive, distributed through LSEG Refinitiv Desktops and the London Stock Exchange website.
Make sure that you have your log-in details by contacting us at: issuersupport@lseg.com.
Our focus is to provide clients with a suite of products and services that enable them to maximise the opportunity of public ownership, and to reap the benefits of good investor relations.
Supporting over 1,600 issuers, Orient Capital are the largest analyser of share registers globally and the dominant provider of ownership analytics to listed companies in multiple markets. We identify and track our clients’ shareholders, as well as their behaviour, using either local ownership disclosure provisions or our own proprietary methodologies, which include leveraging our extensive global relationships with custodians and investors. We achieve this with the support of miraqle, our CRM platform, bringing transparency and structure to your IR strategy with efficient and accurate identification, profiling, management, targeting and more through a database of over 68,000 contacts and 14,000 institutions.
We turn this quality analysis into valuable, up-to-date insights, whilst our complementary services, such as webcasting, perception studies and targeting exercises, further enable direct intelligence to support an effective IR programme and company strategy. Find out more on www.orientcap.com
Our specialist D.F. King proxy solicitation and debt issuer services team work on over 450 projects a year to support global meeting advisory and restructuring requirements. Orient Capital and D.F. King are part of the Link Group of Companies.
RMS Partners is an investor engagement consultancy focused on providing PLCs with time efficient and effective investor relations solutions. We help companies develop bespoke, measurable investor access programmes, build and maintain targeted long-term investor relationships, as well as providing a range of consultancy services customised to your investor relations needs
Investor Roadshows – RMS Partners specialises in arranging targeted Investor Roadshows with Private Client Fund Managers, smaller institutions and regional pension funds. Frequently overlooked but with over 3,000 active fund managers at 200 investment houses in the UK, these investors form a valuable pool of liquidity and can often hold c.10% of a share register.
Investor Targeting and Analysis – With over 50 years’ experience in equity markets, the RMS Partners team is well positioned to provide relevant insight to your share register. Our investor targeting analytics ensures efficient and effective use of management time.
Contact: Robert Irvin | Robert.Irvin@rmspartners.co.uk | 020 3735 5232 Web: www.rmspartners.co.uk
Morrow Sodali is a leading provider of strategic advice and shareholder services to corporate clients around the world.
The firm provides corporate boards and executives with strategic advice and services relating to corporate governance, shareholder and bondholder communication and engagement, capital markets intelligence, proxy solicitation, shareholder activism and mergers and acquisitions.
From headquarters in New York and London, and offices and partners in major capital markets, Morrow Sodali serves more than 1,000 corporate clients in 80+ countries, including many of the world’s largest multinational corporations. In addition to listed and private companies, its clients include financial institutions, mutual funds, ETFs, stock exchanges and membership associations.
For more information visit morrowsodali.com
EQ RD:IR is a global investor relations support provider offering a wide range of IR-related analysis, research & advisory services to over 750 UK & international public companies. From conducting share register analysis to finding new investors across the globe, our services help you understand the market’s perception of your stock and provide unconflicted investor relations advice and strategies. To find out more about identifying and reacting to investor insights for your business, contact our team at Will.Furzer@equiniti.com.
