Global elite: IR Magazine reveals the 2015 Global Top 50

While IR is undeniably framed by local rules and regulations, there are IR principles that hold true wherever you are based. Companies from any locality are under pressure – and increasingly so – to meet international standards of disclosure, transparency and communication.

With this in mind, each year IR Magazine sets out to uncover the best IR practitioners on a global basis. By combining our awards research from the US, Canada, Brazil, Europe, Greater China and South East Asia, we can identify the companies and individuals globally who stand out the most from their peers.

The result is our Global Top 50 of the best IR performers in the world. In this article, we reveal the constituents of the 2015 ranking – although the order they appear in will not be announced until the Global IR Forum in November, where the top five ranked companies will also receive a special award (see Global gathering, below).

We have also created four other award categories: global top IRO, global top small/mid-cap, global best IR by senior management and most progress in IR. Here and on the following pages you can find the short lists for these awards. As with the Global Top 50, the final results will be revealed at the Global IR Forum in November.

To produce the rankings and short lists, IR Magazine has taken into account factors such as the size of the survey in each region and the different markets where companies operate. The following formula has been used: total regional awards points divided first by the number of survey respondents and then by the number of award categories, and then multiplied by the regional market’s total capitalization.

For our global awards, small and mid-caps are defined as companies with a market cap of less than $7.5 bn.

Global awards
All listed alphabetically by company

Short lists for global top IRO

The short list for global top IRO pits regional stars from Europe, the US, Brazil and Greater China against each other. Rolf Woller of Germany’s Continental, known by analysts and investors for his straight-talking style, picked up his second consecutive gong for best IRO at a large cap at this year’s IR Magazine Awards – Europe.

Carlos Lazar and Mao Zefeng were also recipients of the best investor relations officer at a large cap award this year in their respective regions, while Intel’s Mark Henninger is regularly among the highest-ranked individuals in the US market.

Short list for global top small/mid-cap

At this stage, Kroton is the standout performer of the 2015 global awards: not only does the education provider make it into the Global Top 50, but it also appears on three of the four worldwide short lists. While Kroton counts as a large cap at our Brazil Awards, the firm falls into the lower market-cap category for our global short lists, making it eligible for the global top small/mid-cap prize.

In this section, it will fight it out with three other regional grand prix holders from the past 12 months: Ryder System picked up best overall mid-cap in the US, Sa Sa International won best small/mid-cap in Greater China and Sligro Food Group claimed the mid-cap prize for best overall IR in Europe.

Short list for global best IR by senior management

The award for global best IR by senior management sees companies from Portugal (EDP – Energias de Portugal) and Thailand (PTT Exploration and Production) make an appearance in the short lists. In our regional surveys of investors and analysts, EDP’s management team is described as a ‘pleasure to meet with’, while one sell-sider says of PTTEP: ‘The CFO is financially prudent and communicates well with the industry.’

They will face the C-suites of Enterprise Products Partners from the US and Brazil’s Kroton. All four companies have won awards for the strength of their senior management’s investor communications over the last year.

Short list for most progress in IR

All of the companies in the short list for most progress in IR received the same award at a regional level during IR Magazine’s 2015 awards program, and most shot up their local rankings as well. LinkedIn moved from 83rd to 13th in the US Top 100, which may have been helped by a recent decision to double its IR team size. Merck climbed a remarkable 92 places to 31st in the Euro Top 100, while Sinopec rose from a starting point of 31st to fourth in the Asia Top 50. By contrast, Loblaw Companies slipped slightly in the Canada Top 50, although investors and analysts say in their survey feedback that the company is continuing to improve its disclosure, management access and digital communications.

Global Top 50 2015
In alphabetical order

Global gathering

Join IR Magazine and NIRI for the Global IR Forum, a special event bringing together issuers and service providers from around the world to network and find out more about international targeting strategies:

– Learn successful targeting strategies for different regions
– Network with senior-level IROs from your industry based in other countries
– Meet fund managers, buy-side analysts and sell-side analysts with a global outlook

The event will include the Global Top 50 awards reception, a celebration of the world’s best investor relations programs, on the evening of November 17. To register to attend, please visit IRmagazine.com/events.

Date: November 17-18, 2015 (with an opening cocktail reception on November 16)

Location: New York

This article appeared in the fall 2015 print issue of IR Magazine