Will Arnaud Robin prove to be the David, taking on the Goliaths of the IR industry’s contact management and targeting software arena?
Certainly the 30-year-old French native and former New York-based IR agency executive must be hoping so. His 1997-launched Power IR company, with its newly available software package for corporate IR offices, seeks to unseat some well-known and well-established players in the field.
The IR contact management software niche in the US is dominated by four companies: the Carson Group, CDA, Georgeson & Co and Technimetrics. All have long been established as collectors and analysts of stockholder data. And each enjoys the name recognition that has allowed them to build on their traditional strengths in the newer field of marketing software packages.
All four offer software packages priced in the $10-30,000 per year range designed for use by corporate IR offices. They integrate databases of analysts, fund managers and the like with varying degrees of contact management control. Users maintain logs of interactions with each recorded individual, store communications preferences, track ownership (including that of peers), and sort and sift through the information reservoir to generate customized lists, such as names to invite to a roadshow presentation.
What makes the field interesting these days is not that contact management systems exist (sales force automation for years has been an entrenched segment of the business software industry) but that now they are being combined with the power of the new technologies to distribute more up-to-date information. Corporate IROs are being liberated from the SEC’s 13F publishing schedule, and to some degree from their dependence on one-on-one information sharing from high-priced individual IR agencies.
Home Advantage
That information currency represents yet another way for IR officers to do more in-house. The advantage in developing the next generation of contact management software rests with those who control the core research and who have existing distribution channels in place.
Which makes Arnaud Robin’s move into the field all the more ambitious. And he’s not shy about claiming a superior product.
‘Technology is under-utilized in investor relations, even in high profile companies,’ Robin says. ‘We have combined the best IR information available with the best software to make a new kind of IR database system that we think goes far beyond any other product currently on the market.’
Power IR Manager includes information on 3,500 investment management and research firms from 70 countries. All told, some 30,000 sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts and portfolio managers are profiled. The system also includes built-in reminder tools to prompt the user when a scheduled call-back is due, for example, and the ability to customize communications according to various national standards.
The information base for Power IR Manager is drawn from investment research directory provider Nelson Publications and investment profiler Vickers Stock Research. CD-Rom updates are sent monthly.
Market Shift
If Robin does have his eye on carving out a decent client base for Power IR, either the market will have to grow or one or more of the major existing players will have to lose some of their current share.
Anamate, from the consulting and stock surveillance agency Technimetrics, is the contact management software package with the largest currently installed base, now in some 480 companies in 20 countries. Technimetrics has a 22-person sales force selling the product, and it sponsors user conferences around the world. The firm recently hired a director of training to visit client sites.
That hands-on customer interaction is an advantage any newcomer would have a difficult time replicating.
Anamate, built on the Fox Pro database system, was recently re-launched with a simpler user interface and expanded data management functions. The software tracks some 52,000 portfolio managers, analysts, and investment professionals worldwide, as well as the ownership status of more than 48,000 equity issues. The data is kept current by 50 research professionals monitoring capital markets. Those researchers, Technimetrics says, have ongoing relationships with some 6,000 buy and sell-side firms, so they can sometimes note changes even before they take place. Updates are posted on the Internet each Sunday night, for investor relations offices to download Monday morning.
In the often difficult-to-decipher mutual fund area, Anamate links ownership positions (including those of peer companies) to individual managers at more than 6,000 funds worldwide.
Ed Curtin, Technimetrics’ managing director of its global investor relations practice, says one of Anamate’s strengths is its ease-of-use. With its tab-driven maneuvering, ‘a user is never more than two or three clicks away from any information. Our strategy is to be on as many desktops as possible,’ Curtin says.
Others may have similar objectives as well, and are investing to keep up with rising client expectations for ever-more current information.
The Carson Group’s offering goes by the brand name Hero. Like its competitors, it offers built-in tracking of thousands of mutual fund and institutional managers, along with the full array of list production, data sorting and contact tracking features. The research in Hero comes from both the publicly available sources, such as 13F filings, and also from Carson’s networks of 100 research staffers who continually track some 20,000 funds and 50,000 individual securities.
Reports can be generated from Hero in a variety of ways, including by such variables as largest buyers and sellers, size of holdings, alphabetical listing, and other variations. Says David Geliebter, Carson Group chairman, ‘Short of frying an egg, Hero does just about everything.’
CDA Equity Intelligence, the Thomson Financial unit which offers its Delta and Delta Plus software packages, is now in a beta-testing stage for on-demand, online updating of its products’ information reservoir. The so-called near-real-time information should be available to Delta Plus subscribers in early 1998, says James Chard, CDA Equity Intelligence’s chief operating officer. ‘Investor relations is fast moving toward a real-time environment,’ he says. ’13F will not be the basis of the business in the future.’
CDA’s ability to keep its information stream current is driven in part by the move toward electronic filing through the SEC’s Edgar system, as well as CDA’s network of researchers and its proprietary database of institutional holders. Some 1,400 13F institutions, 1,000 non-13F institutions, 5,000 US mutual funds, 6,000 European and Pacific Rim portfolios, and 5,000 insurance companies are included.
‘IR has been relationship driven, and that will never go away. But now an equal leg of the stool is data and analysis. IR is becoming more quantitative than in prior years,’ Chard adds.
One advantage of CDA’s Delta Plus is that it includes analyst projections, a benefit of CDA Equity Intelligence’s relationship to Thomson-owned First Call.
Data Diving
For Georgeson & Co, leveraging an existing data pool into a software offering has been the logical move. Georgeson’s three-year-old SynerG software integrates the agency’s ownership and consulting information with what it says is an easy-to-use system suitable for any IRO.
SynerG maintains profiles on more than 3,500 institutions worldwide, along with more than 2,000 mutual funds. Updates are offered weekly via an online bulletin board.
‘We developed the software because our clients wanted access to our data and analytics,’ explains Catherine McEwing, Georgeson managing director. ‘It allows us to integrate the services we offer.’
Georgeson is currently working on a 32-bit version of SynerG, due out sometime in late 1998, as well as a ‘complete Internet’ product which would allow users to draw information as needed.
McEwing says that the online capability will enhance SynerG’s ability to incorporate commentary and observation offered by Georgeson account managers. When a SynerG user downloads updates, along would come the account manager’s text. ‘It’s almost like having an extra person in the office,’ McEwing suggests.
For Power IR’s Robin, the real question to face up to must be: is there room for one more in the market?
