Dear Santa:
What a year! As an executive responsible for corporate image, I’ve found myself battling with wary investors in an uncertain recovery, so I’m not unhappy to put the past 365 days to rest.
Now, as a new year approaches, please grant a few wishes for the beleaguered IR profession. In return, I promise to be a good IRO, attend more chapter meetings and put more of my spare change in those little Unicef envelopes.
Beyond my overriding desire for world peace, here’s what I’m wishing for:
1. Real-time ownership information – for free – over the internet
Why, in a web-based world, does the SEC allow institutional owners of US corporations to file their ownership information quarterly – and late, to boot? This information should be instantaneously available through the internet. Stock-watch firms would then be free to focus on interpreting the trends, not divining ownership through bank lists and back office calls.
2. A moratorium on poor accounting pronouncements and murky legislation
Lawyers have had a banner year wrestling the communications function from the realm of IR – please give us a break. I’m tired of reconciling every damn number with Gaap. We need a reckoning of form, not substance, to regain the confidence of investors.
3. A quarter without a major corporate scandal
Please, Santa, give us three straight months without a Martha, Dick or ‘fat cat’ sensation.
4. The rise of the Australian institutional investor
A yearly trip to Sydney (with a tag-on weekend to Tasmania or the Great Barrier Reef) would surely increase IRO productivity.
5. Good deals on Paris hotels
I’m so tired of being treated rudely at reception and having a closet to sleep in for over 3300 a night!
6. A new venue for the Wall Street Analyst Forum
Please, Santa, send this note to Gerry Scott: ‘The Roosevelt Hotel in New York is not somewhere we want to present, much less stay.’
7. An alternative to PowerPoint presentations
If I have to endure another year of fading bullet points, flying logos and being read to by a monotone expert, I really will call it quits.
8. European 13-F filings
How about we get the same information on our owners in Europe that’s available (by paying a fortune, mind you) in the US? That way, we could track the progress of our communications programs in Europe.
9. A boring geo-political environment
Maybe send Leo Buscaglia-followers to volatile areas to give hugs?
10. A thriving downtown New York
I want to walk down streets packed with pinstriped executives off to important meetings and new hip buildings. Companies need to move back downtown and New York needs to live up to its promise again.
11. Self-updating web sites
I’ll make one update to my communications and it updates the entire web kingdom on the same matter – everywhere.
12. An end to shareholder lawsuits
When will regulators realize these suits do nothing to curb corporate actions and harm shareholders more than help? Corporations insure for, and expect, frivolous suits, and lawyers make themselves rich through the process.
13. The rise of the European individual investor
This would allow my European counterparts to empathize with what we in the US go through on a daily basis. And how about an end to sell-side domination of IR in Europe, too?
