I do everything our CEO doesn’t want to do,’ jokes David Hinze, IRO at Outsource International. As VP of corporate affairs and compliance officer, he only spends about 40 percent of his time on IR. Many other functions report to him including competitive intelligence, stock option administration and purchasing. His compliance responsibilities encompass insider trading, confidentiality and disclosure policies, as well as reporting to the SEC. Hinze also ensures the MD&A is up-to-date and that all the risk factors are covered.
‘The upside is that I get a broad view of the organization, which helps a lot in the IR role,’ Hinze comments. He agrees that on the flipside, his contact with the investment community helps inform Outsource’s strategy (yes – he also handles corporate development). ‘Knowing what the Street is looking for and what their hot buttons are helps a lot,’ he says.
As Patriot Bank Corp has grown, so has Diane Davidheiser’s job title. Until the bank’s conversion from a mutual at the end of 1995, she was administrative assistant to the CEO. ‘For the conversion, there needed to be an immediate contact for all the groundwork and document preparation, and it just seemed natural that I be that contact for the CEO and CFO. From there my job gradually grew.’ Today Patriot’s market capitalization is some $62 mn, and Davidheiser’s business card reads corporate secretary/investor relations specialist.
Davidheiser doesn’t view herself as a typical IRO because it’s the CEO and CFO who talk directly with the financial community while she sets up IR visits, organizes annual meetings, and handles anything to do with stock administration. ‘It’s easier for me to juggle roles than the average IRO, who has more immediate contact with the investment community. Because we’re a small-cap, people want one-on-one contact with the CEO and CFO. I can see the IR role expanding as the company grows.’
Twists & turns
John Schoenfelder has the unique title of VP of international banking and IR at DVI Inc, a Pennsylvania company that provides specialty finance to the healthcare industry. As he recounts, the twists and turns of his varied career led straight to this unusual marriage of responsibilities.
For 15 years Schoenfelder was a corporate banker at The Philadelphia National Bank, winding up heading the transportation and equipment finance unit. He then left banking to become treasurer and corporate secretary for Teleflex, a diversified manufacturing company. ‘As corporate secretary I participated in the annual meeting and in preparing the annual report,’ he recalls. ‘Meanwhile, as treasurer, I was involved in raising funding and negotiating credit for the company’s growth, and it became very natural to discuss the business with people who were interested in investing. That’s how my pure finance background led me to investor relations. I enjoyed talking to people on the outside, explaining what the company did, what its strategies were and how it was positioned.’
Schoenfelder came to DVI in 1997 after a stint as CFO and IRO for Environmental Tectonics, a smaller Amex-listed company. ‘DVI had a need for someone with banking experience to help as it moved overseas,’ he explains. ‘At the same time it was in need of someone to head the IR function, but concern was that neither job was full-time. So I pitched in and helped on both sides, with about 60 percent of my time spent on IR.’ In the end, Schoenfelder’s background in specialty finance makes him a very credible spokesperson with analysts and investors: ‘I would be handicapped without it,’ he concludes.
Myriad indeed are the ways into IR. Kelli Powell was an accountant with Price Waterhouse before joining Pimco Advisors in Newport Beach, California with the title of tax manager. As a partnership that sends out K1 forms, Pimco gets a lot of questions about investor tax issues as well tax issues for the various entities that make up the company – questions that Powell found herself answering. Then, with the departure of a key consultant at Pimco’s IR agency, she stepped forward to take on the added responsibility. Her title now is director of IR and tax reporting, and with the arrival of a new tax manager at the beginning of the year, about 80-90 percent of her time is spent on IR.
‘I’m more of a people person, so I was a little tired of looking at tax returns,’ Powell laughs. ‘It was a nice transition to IR.’
