Almost four in 10 (38 percent) of companies globally say they have seen an increase in the number of meetings with investors from outside their own region since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
New research from IR Magazine, published in the Corporate Access II report, shows that this increase in non-domestic investor engagement has been most notable among North American and European companies.
More than four in 10 (41 percent) of North American companies say they have seen an increase in meetings with investors from outside the region, while just 10 percent say they have seen a decrease since the start of the pandemic. In Europe, 40 percent say they have seen an increase in non-domestic engagement and 14 percent a decrease.
In Asia, however, fewer companies have seen this growth in non-domestic investor interest – 34 percent say there has been an increase in meetings with investors from outside the region – while a notably higher number than in either North America or Europe (30 percent) say interest has dropped since around March 2020.
‘There is a clear expectation among IROs that the trend for increased meetings with investors outside of their region will continue,’ write the report authors. ‘More than six in 10 expect such meetings to increase through 2022.’
Meetings don’t necessarily translate into a position
Researchers also find that share registers have become slightly more global since the start of the pandemic, but the increase in the number of shares held by investors from outside the region is much lower than the increase in meetings companies are having with non-domestic investors.
For example, 21 percent of North American and 22 percent of European companies have seen an increase in non-domestic investors on the share register since the start of the pandemic. But 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively, of companies in these regions also say they have seen a drop in non-domestic holdings.
Again, Asia is the outlier. When it comes to the proportion of investors from outside the region actually taking a stake in companies across Asia, more firms (27 percent) say they have seen an increase in non-domestic holdings – but the same number have also seen a decrease.
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