Nancy Bobrowitz has been appointed vice president, investor relations, for Reuters America Holdings Inc. After two years as IR director, Bobrowitz succeeds Michael Reilly, senior vice president, external relations, who is setting up an investor relations and management consultancy practice. Reilly will act as a consultant for Reuters and others.
Established in London by Paul Julius Reuter in 1851, Reuters first used carrier pigeons, gallopers on horseback and telegraph to bridge the financial information gap, before turning to radios and teleprinters in the 1920s. By the time the company went public in 1984, listing both in London and on Nasdaq, computer-based businesses dominated its general news services. Reuters has since acquired or entered several online services and multimedia ventures.
‘The main IR challenge is explaining a complex business,’ says Bobrowitz. ‘While most financial services players understand Reuters, it is not a household name.’ Still, she says a number of developments have made the task easier, such as Reuters’ acquisition of Quotron from Citicorp in 1994, a service well known to equity investors; and the growth of Instinet, Reuters’ computerised stockbroker, which has put its name in front of thousands of institutions.
Bobrowitz first joined Reuters in 1981 as a financial journalist in New York before taking on a number of corporate and financial communications roles. She will continue to work closely with Michael Cooling, the London-based manager for corporate relations who is responsible for global IR and is also chairman of the UK’s Investor Relations Society. With the help of conference calls and e-mail, Bobrowitz and Cooling maintain a feel for the issues in a number of different time zones. ‘We make sure investors on both sides of the Atlantic have equal access to our management team,’ says Bobrowitz.
For example, Reuters’ half-year results are delivered via a teleconference which links audiences in London and New York, letting investors in both locations ask questions and get the live reactions from management and other investors.
Roughly a third of Reuters’ shares are in US hands, mostly in ADR form. Bobrowitz runs across the whole gamut of inquiries in the US, from the impact of foreign currency exposure to the macroeconomic outlook for Reuters’ global markets. ‘I run into these questions more and more as US investors increase their non-US holdings,’ notes Bobrowitz. ‘That’s good news for Reuters – the globalisation of investment expands our universe of potential investors.’
