That awkward silence: sitting there, your personal discomfort rising, anticipating the inevitable comment. When it comes you are immediately transported back to a difficult moment in your youth, when something that had seemed such a good idea initially proved disastrous later on. And then it comes: ‘So explain to me why I wasted the last 60 minutes of my life?’ If the exchange occurs on a plane it can lend new meaning to the expression ‘long haul’.
It goes without saying that no IR professional wants to find him or herself in the situation described above. In an instant, all the time and effort expended planning the roadshow is wasted and it can cast a shadow over the remainder of the trip. Everyone wants to target the ‘right’ investors, but the question that needs to be asked is: what makes an investor right for you? It is not so much a case of who, and much more a case of why…
