Box IR conducted its second annual investor relations survey of Swedish public companies in November and December 2011. 120 companies responded, double the amount from the previous year's survey. The survey examined issues like work experience, measuring IR efforts, providing guidance to investors, and use of external IR consultants. It also asked about the greatest challenges for 2012. Key findings included that over 40% of respondents were IR directors and most common work experience was in communications/IR. Few companies currently measure the outcome of their IR efforts or provide quantifiable earnings estimates to investors. Knowledge of investors was the most important criteria for hiring IR consultants.

1. Box IR’s annual IR survey
November-December 2011
Copyright © Box IR

2. Executive summary
During November and December 2011 Box IR conducted its second annual IR survey
among listed swedish companies. It is our ambition to make this into an annually recurring
examination of the strategic communication and investor relations issues relevant to public
companies in sweden. There is no doubt that the questions in the survey are of great
interest to the IRo’s. In total we received 120 answers, double the amount compared to
the survey conducted last year.
To a large extent the 2011 survey covered other issues than the survey of 2010. among
other things the respondents answered questions on work experience, if they measure
the effect of their IR efforts and if they give any quantifiable guidance or estimates to
investors. We also asked if and to what extent the companies use external IR consultants
(excluding the annual report process) and which selection criteria ranks as most important.
Finally, we also wanted to know what the IR community view as the greatest challenges
for 2012.
Below you will find some highlights from the survey, but we have of course delved deeper
into the answers on a less aggregated level and found some interesting takeouts for the
respective group of companies. For those interested in a more comprehensive view of the
survey we offer one-on-one meetings where we can present the conclusions with a focus
on your perspective.
About Box IR
Box IR is a communications agency spe-
cializing in investor relations and strategic
corporate communications. our offer is based
on advice from senior consultants with long
experience in equity trading and research.
Combined with our experience in communica-
tions, public relations and media relations, we
can offer an integrated range of services built
on industry knowledge and first-hand capital
markets experience from some of the leading
Nordic Investment Banks.
Box IR is owned and operated by mikael Zillén and Tomas Öqvist. With over 30 years joint
experience in the financial sector and over 10 years of financial communications, our vision
is to become the leading communications agency for companies and organizations who
demand excellence in financial communications, combined with financial expertise. In
January 2012 Ingrid Östhols joined Box IR’s team of senior advisors.
Strategisk kommunikation
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3. Highlights
The 120 participants in our survey correspond to a 22 percent response rate. Companies
on the NasDaQ omx main market showed a response rate of 36 percent, and 31 of the
large Cap Companies participated corresponding to a response rate of 54 percent.
Respondents after listing
37 32
28 29
19
16
12 13
OMX LARGE CAP OMX MID CAP OMX SMALL CAP Other (FN, AT, NGM)
2010 2011
Respondents after position
Other 7%
Communications officer 3%
IR Department 6%
IRO 44%
CFO 15%
CEO 25%
over four out of ten respondents were IR directors, 25 percent were Ceo’s and 15
percent CFo’s. Work experiences prior to the current position vary but are dominated
by communications/IR.
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4. In the 2010 survey we asked about the goals for the IR effort, which we now followed up
by surveying how many companies that actually measure the outcome of that effort and if
so, how.
Main objectives with IR
NASDAQ OMX & First North (54 companies, multiple answers possible)
FAIR MARKET VALUATION 42
BUILD COMPANY AWARENESS 26
COMPLIANCE 24
IMPROVE OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE 14
FACILITATE FUNDRAISING 11
OTHER 2
Box IR’s annual IR survey 2010
To give quantifiable guidance or estimates to the market or not is a controversial issue, but
also subject to different interpretations. Hardly surprising for those consuming financial
information from the listed companies, our survey confirmed that the number of compa-
nies giving tangible earnings estimates is fairly low. more interesting is the confusion that
seems to surround the definitions of guidance, estimates and financial targets.
When companies hire IR consultants the most important criterion is knowledge about the
target group, i.e. the investors, while price is a less important factor.
Foreign investors are an important and growing group for many companies. However,
at the moment few companies have seen much value in having IR staff abroad or hiring
consultants to communicate explicitly with these investors.
Investor targeting, i.e. a structured and dedicated way to communicate with selected
groups of investors, is becoming an ever more important discipline to increase the ef-
ficiency of the IR efforts as well as achieving a desired ownership structure. our survey
investigated how the companies handle this.
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5. IR activities in order of importance
(scale 1-5 where 1=not important and 5=very important)
One-on-ones 4.36
Report presentations 4.18
Roadshows 3.77
Capital markets days 3.57
Webcasts 3.28
HTML-based annual report 2.47
News letters 2.30
Social media 2.13
When ranking different IR activities the result shows a relatively small deviation from the
view of the financial market (look at Box IR’s Financial market survey 2011). However,
there are significant differences between companies of different size.
after a very turbulent year for the financial markets with focus on the debt crisis and
further cutbacks on both the buy and sell side resulting in fewer sector and company
specialists, many companies see a greater challenge to reach out to the target group and
penetrating the information barriers. We have investigated what the IRo’s view as the big-
gest challenges for the coming year.
The condensed summary above represents only a few of the conclusions from the survey.
If you want a more comprehensive view of the survey we offer a personalized presenta-
tion where we look at the conclusions from your point of view.
Contact us at:
corporate@boxir.se
or
+46 8-21 41 00
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