The Canadian IR community will be meeting in style in Toronto, where over-traveled IROs can easily throw in a few investor meetings to make the most of their trip, says CIRI CEO Yvette Lokker. The conference will be held at the Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre Hotel from June 3 to June 5. #CIRI18 is this year’s dedicated hashtag, for those on Twitter.
CONFERENCE FOCUS
The theme of this year’s conference is ‘IR: Influence and impact’. As Lokker explains: ‘The reason we chose this is because IROs engage with such a broad cross-section of stakeholders and that puts them in an excellent position to apply influence for impact, so we have structured the program around that. We’ve identified some areas where we wanted to provide broader knowledge on factors that affect the investor relations environment.’
NOVELTIES FOR #CIRI18
‘We’re kicking off the sessions with an IRO-only networking event that will be done in a speed-dating style,’ Lokker explains. ‘We’re also introducing a small-cap stream to the program this year with relevant sessions on how to attract investor attention and how to get coverage – with suggested alternatives if you can’t.
‘Normally we have a break between our events but, because we’re in Toronto, we want to make sure we keep the people living locally fully engaged, so we’ll be going straight into our reception and evening function after the sessions. Our evening event will be a fun casual party that will provide IROs with some more networking opportunities.’
VIP LIST
This year’s event will be co-chaired by Canadian investor relations legend Janet Craig and Katie Keita, director of IR at Shopify. ‘The conference is shaping up to be really great,’ enthuses Craig, who has led investor relations at Nexen, Loblaw Companies and Fortis.
SNEAK PEEK AT THE MAIN SESSIONS
‘We’ll be doing a deep dive on market structure to take a look at what’s happening in the capital markets that could be impacting Canadian issuers,’ Lokker says. ‘Other sessions include a discussion on long-termism with a representative from Focusing Capital on the Long Term Global, a case study on blockchain and how the technology has been used and applied in the IR-related area of proxy voting, and an update on Mifid II.’
CORE WORKOUT
Traditional sessions focusing on the core responsibilities of IROs and ‘tying back to the influence IROs can have and the impact they can make’ will include:
– Analyst models and how IR professionals can best work with analysts to make sure they’re re ecting the valuation properly
– Best practices for board interaction
– How IROs can become trusted advisers to the board.
