The mainstream business press is missing a good opportunity when it stays away from investor relations conferences. Here’s where you get the real juice. At this year’s National Investor Relations Institute (Niri) national conference, for example, the real story behind the fury over governance ratings was revealed during a presentation on – you guessed it – governance ratings.
After a scathing article in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, June 6, James Dean, a corporate governance expert from Institutional Shareholder Services, defended ISS’s business model under which it gives out ‘independent’ governance scores while offering fee-based governance consulting services to companies.
‘At the end of the day, if we didn’t offer corporates a vehicle to improve their corporate governance practices…I don’t think any institutions would actually be interested in our services,’ said Dean. ‘We think we are being pretty responsible in doing that and certainly it’s something that continues to be up for debate.’
In truth, Dean could have relaxed his defense because the IR community isn’t debating ISS’s potential conflict of interest so much as it is questioning whether new governance ratings systems are interfering with corporate strategy.
During this ratings session, one veteran IRO kept nudging her neighbor and muttering under her breath. She was incensed at how governance rating agencies are telling companies how they should be run. From this IR professional’s perspective, governance score-keepers are high-handedly dictating how companies should achieve good governance. She wasn’t bothered about the ISS controversy as presented in the WSJ but she had fundamental concerns about governance ratings and the effect these scores are having on investor relations.
Another sore point at the Niri conference was Nasdaq’s Corporate Services Network. The exchange has lately been promoting – and even profiting from – certain firms that provide services to its listed companies.
During a session featuring stock exchanges, Nasdaq crossed the line by letting its corporate services partners give presentations. Some attendees complained of being subjected to blatant sales pitches. Of course the most incensed were from the firms that compete directly with Nasdaq’s favored service providers, but even some IROs were upset about this session. On the other hand, the exchange says it has received positive feedback from issuers (both NYSE-listed and Nasdaq-listed) about its new service.
A lot goes on behind the scenes and in between sessions at major IR community events. The choice of topics at this year’s Niri conference accurately reflects what’s happening in IR but it’s the candid reactions and discussions during and in the midst of sessions that really drive the industry. What you overhear in whispered tones around the coffee stand is often what creates change in months to come.
