Q: How can companies maintain a high level of investor interest after they list?
A: Since Scott Wilson Group floated on the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) main market on March 15 last year, its share price has doubled. The share price leap alone is symptomatic of the level of interest from investors. Part of the reason for this sustained interest is that the company quickly found its feet in its new PLC environment.
Investors really appreciated the fact that we were forthcoming with the right kind of information, right from the beginning. We benefited from the solid support of our broker, which, together with our financial PR firm, facilitated analyst introductions. We also made direct private approaches to raise our profile.
Fortunately, all our hard work has not gone unnoticed. We won new company of the year at the PLC Awards and best IR for a new issue at the IR Magazine UK Awards this year.
Q: How can corporate communications generate attention from investors?
A: It has to be said that our performance has been enhanced by corporate communications, which is playing a key role in generating attention; the publicity we have received thus far has a direct correlation with reaching investors and increasing the share price.
Part of the challenge is communicating to our investor audience what the company actually does. We are a support services consultancy firm for civil and structural engineers including transport, property, environment and natural resources around the world. This means we are involved in a wide variety of works, which accordingly provides us with a real opportunity to get staff members involved with the financial media and put us on investors’ radar.
The corporate communications strategy must have a clear investor relations element, targeted at both existing and potential investors. The financial calendar dates play a key role in developing the strategy and those dates are also used as a vehicle to communicate significant corporate information, such as growth and development targets, long-term strategy, the order book, and so on.
It is vital that investors are kept informed of company progress and feel they have made a sound investment. This can be done directly or via good press coverage, which independently endorses the brand. For example, successful coverage of some of our major contract wins – such as the East London Line – in the Financial Times has had positive results.
