One quarter of IR heads report to the CEO at their company, while 62 percent report to the CFO, according to the IR Magazine Research Report: IR Resources.
Reporting structures vary with company size, however, with small-cap companies’ IR chiefs being more likely to report to their CEO. Interestingly, IR budgets at smaller companies are also typically slightly higher if IR reports directly to the chief executive.
At large and mega-cap companies, average budgets are considerably higher if IR reports to the CFO. In every cap size, IR teams are larger when they report to the CEO, although only at mega-cap is this to a notable degree.
In monetary terms, IR budgets stabilized in 2017. The average global budget is now $445,000, just $1,000 down on the average IR budget for 2016. There is an $875,000 difference between average IR budgets at small caps and those at mega-caps. Mega-cap IR budgets are nearly twice the size of those at large caps.
Typically, less than a third of IR budget spend goes on external services.
The key data from this report is taken from the latest rounds of the IR Magazine Global IR Survey, conducted from Q1 to Q3 2017, which includes responses from 1,164 individuals.
Find out more about the report here.
