The last time Isabelle Adjahi was collecting an IR Magazine Award, it was in the name of Genivar. Now renamed WSP Global, one of the awards the firm wins in 2016 is for best IR during a corporate transaction, for the purchase of Parsons Brinckerhoff; the other is for Adjahi herself, for best IRO at a mid-cap company.
Adjahi’s team comprises just herself and Marie-Lise Tremblay, but Adjahi also shares an assistant with the CEO and CFO who, along with other senior managers, are very involved in WSP’s IR activities. ‘I regularly organize events that put them in the limelight, to give analysts and investors the opportunity to interact with those who implement the strategy,’ she reports.
Adjahi says she has put lots of effort into being proactive this year. ‘One of the things I know for sure is that the market does not like surprises, good or bad.’
She cites examples of ‘commenting on the impact of a legislative decision in the US and exposing [the investment community] to our technical expertise in a given sector. We have also been extremely transparent and openly discussed the impact the drop in crude oil would have on our operations several quarters before it happened.’
On the macro picture, Adjahi is upbeat: ‘Our geographical and sector diversification made us the ‘perfect stock to hold’ in 2015. Less than 5 percent of our activities are directly linked to oil and gas and approximately 80 percent of our revenues are from outside Canada’, which brought forex benefits.
‘Finally, more of our activities are in sectors that are usually supported by government in tough times: infrastructure and building sectors. So we spent a lot of time positioning ourselves as experts in these two sectors and explaining our technical expertise around the world.’
This profile is part of a series that appears in the IR Magazine Investor Perception Study – Canada 2016. The report, available to professional subscribers to IR Magazine, can be accessed here.
