News
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How IR teams can master analyst consensus
Analyst consensus – the aggregated estimates from analysts on a company’s upcoming results – is a critical part of the financial communication landscape and an essential tool for IR teams. Yet for many investor relations professionals, working with analyst consensus is time-consuming, difficult to analyze and too often based on incomplete data.
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Geopolitical volatility has made the IRO presence more important than ever
IROs are at the frontline for communication and engagement with shareholders. The role is as complex as it is satisfying while navigating the constant turbulence. At any given time, new regulatory requirements, shareholder tendencies or political factors demand a response.
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People moves: Autodoc names new IR lead as $2.8 bn IPO looms
Stefanie Steiner has taken up the IR reins at Autodoc as it prepares an IPO expected to value it at $2.8 bn. Writing on LinkedIn this week, she says: ‘I am excited to share that I will embark with #AUTODOC on the next stage of my journey. About a week ago, I joined the new team and had a very warm welcome. In such a technology-driven company I have to familiarize myself not only with business model, strategy, financials and the large market that has enormous potential in the years to come, but also with many new programs and tools.…
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Investor relations in Europe: uniting a fractured landscape
Across Europe, the landscape of IR societies is diverse and highly decentralized, with most countries having their own independent associations. While these national IR societies effectively support local professionals, there is no singular pan-European body that unifies these efforts. In most European markets, you can find well-established societies like Germany’s DIRK or France’s CLIFF.
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IR time management: the holy grail for today’s investor relations professionals
It’s no secret that the IR workload has been expanding – even as resources fail to match pace. At the same time, market uncertainty has made the day-to-day less predictable. The result is that the modern IRO is busier than ever. This was something Erik Carlson, chief operating officer at Notified pointed to early in a recent webinar titled: Strategic time management for today’s IRO. ’If look at the challenges in the market, the rise in distrust of the media, the proliferation of content – it’s becoming harder and harder to cut through the noise, to synthesize information and do…
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Navigating market volatility: A data-centric approach
This year, market volatility has surged dramatically, fueled by dynamic US trade policies and ensuing responses from governments around the globe. The market landscape is shifting almost daily, leaving companies scrambling to provide clear forecasts amid a sea of uncertainty. Meanwhile sell-side analysts, traditionally reliant on stable, predictable data, now find themselves venturing into new data sources to recalibrate their projections on the fly.
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IR Playbook: Maximizing your return on time now available
IR Impact research shows that IROs are increasingly taking on tasks outside of the traditional investor relations role, with resources failing to match pace. We look at where they are spending most time and which tasks they find the most value in to uncover where efficiencies can be found.
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‘Best-in-class IR is about creating a clear vision’: Roy Wefuan at the IR Impact Awards – Canada 2025
What are the hallmarks of a best-in-class IRO? For Roy Wefuan, head of client success at TMX Group, it comes down to prioritizing clear, consistent and proactive communication with your various stakeholder audiences.
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People moves: Jutta Mikkola takes over at Stora Enso and Greer Aviv joins Cognex
US machine vision system maker Cognex has brought in Greer Aviv as its new head of investor relations. In a move effective from June 2, 2025, Aviv will join the Nasdaq-listed firm to serve as the ‘primary liaison between Cognex and the investment community,’ a press release states.
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People moves: Angela Catlin steps back from The Co-operative Bank as B&M’s head of IR David McCarthy retires
Angela Catlin, head of investor relations, corporate affairs and brand at The Co-operative Bank, has announced she is stepping back after two years at the company. Catlin, who has spoken at several IR Impact events about ESG and other topics in recent years, joined The Co-operative Bank in 2023 as its head of investor relations, adding corporate affairs and brand duties to her job in 2024.
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EDGAR Next: what public companies need to do before September 15
New SEC FILING RULES REPRESENT A BIG SHIFT EDGAR Next represents the most significant shift in SEC filing access in over two decades. Beginning September 15, 2025, public companies must transition to a more secure, role-based access system that replaces shared credentials with individual login.gov accounts. Failure to comply may result in loss of filing access and missed disclosure deadlines. To avoid disruptions in filing access, enrollment should be completed between March 24 and September 12, 2025. Although the enrollment window remains open until December 19, filings cannot be submitted until the process is finalized, potentially delaying time-sensitive disclosures. Filers…
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The new standard in financial research: A purpose-built AI chat for finance and IR professionals
We’ve all been there: scrolling through PDFs, trying to find that one data point; re-listening to earnings call Q&As; sifting through 50-page slide decks packed with bullet points, just to find a single sentence that might confirm or kill your thesis. It’s time-consuming, it’s manual and, in a high-stakes environment where every second and decision counts, it’s frankly no longer good enough.
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Activists: the last defenders of the retail shareholder
What is good for an activist is often good for other shareholders In October 2017, Procter & Gamble (P&G), one of the largest US companies, announced that shareholders had rejected the proposal of activist fund Trian Partners to join its board of directors. The difference in votes for or against the request was so small – a meagre 0.2 percent on more than 2 bn shares, that Trian asked for a recount. In December of that year, the company announced that Nelson Pretz, chairman of the fund, would join the board of directors after all. After the recount, the fund…
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IR lessons from Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway’s ‘Oracle of Omaha’ retires
Berkshire Hathaway’s charismatic chief executive Warren Buffett, the much-vaunted ‘Oracle of Omaha’, enjoyed two significant career milestones this week. The first was helming his 60th annual meeting for the fund, which shed light on where the trillion-dollar-investment manager will be focusing its attentions in the near future. Almost 20,000 people attended the event, which sees attendees spend hundreds of thousands at concession stands alone.
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Struggling for survival amid the noise: biotech webinar offers wider lessons for the IR community
While not everyone in the IR profession will be working in the environment that biotech IROs find themselves in today, everyone seemingly everywhere is battling the noise and uncertainty generated by tariff talks, geopolitical tensions and other macro headwinds. IR Impact recently sat down with Angela Bitting, senior vice president, corporate affairs at Twist Bioscience, Aron Feingold, vice president IR and corporate communications at Geron Corporation and Lynn Pieper Lewis, founder and CEO of webinar sponsor Gilmartin Group, to talk about the challenges the sector is facing. The fascinating discussion that followed is as useful to those in the broader…
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Patrick Möller eyes new opportunity at optician Fielmann and Stephen Nightingale steps down from Britvic
Experienced German IRO Patrick Möller has taken up a new role at Hamburg-based optician group Fielmann as its new director of investor relations. He joins the company after 17 years as vice president of investor relations at New Work, formerly known as Xing, during which time he was nominated for the award for best overall IR – small cap at the IR Magazine Awards – Europe 2016. He left his role at New Work following the company’s delisting from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange earlier this year.
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‘I wanted to set a new standard for investor days’: Rebecca Gardy of Campbell’s on an award-winning event
At the recent IR Impact Awards – US 2025, we spoke to Rebecca Gardy, chief investor relations officer at Campbell’s, about how exactly they planned last year’s investor day
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ESG: Over or in it for the long haul? IR Impact Forum takes debate to Canada
Whether ESG is over or increasingly relevant, in need of reform or greater standardization is the great debate. Has the term become too ‘woke’? Is it too much of a political hot potato? Does good ESG equate to better share price performance, or has it been hijacked under the pretense of improving returns? Prabh Banga of Aecon Group (left) and Jack Mintz from the University of Calgary (middle) debate ESG with IR Impact’s Steve Wade These were the topics up for debate when Prabh Banga, vice president of sustainability at Aecon Group and Jack Mintz, president’s fellow of the school…
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Huntington Bank names Eric Wasserstrom as IR lead and a flurry of posts open up across the profession
New names at Huntington Bank. Atos Group and Konecranes, while a flurry of posts open up across the profession. Eric Wasserstrom has been named as the new vice president, head of investor relations at Huntington National Bank, a $210 bn asset regional bank operating across 13 US states.
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How broker insights can transform your earnings process
As data continues to flood the market, IROs are finding it both challenging and time-consuming to gauge market perceptions of their companies. Increasingly, IROs are looking to their data platform providers to help them collect all the available, granular insight from brokers in one place, where it can be sorted, analyzed and better understood. But how can that data be passed through into the earnings process overall and be used to improve the impact of a company’s latest figures on various stakeholder audiences?
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Earnings season: Navigating financial guidance amid macroeconomic uncertainty
In the current climate it is the transparency and rigor of guidance rather than the precise figures that matters most. And, as public companies prepare to report earnings for the March 2025 quarter, it is important to evaluate how best to communicate financial guidance and manage investor expectations in the context of ongoing market volatility and geopolitical disruption.
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Wall Street caught between a rock and a hard place as tensions between US and China rise
The trade war between China and the US has spiraled into unchartered territory. On April 10, Donald Trump’s administration imposed a tariff of 125 percent on all Chinese imports. China called the actions unfair and responded with similar measures. Within the broader debate around unravelling economic ties between the US and China, where economic interdependence has increasingly been viewed as a threat to US national security, this escalation raises questions about whether global finance is also reducing its presence in China.
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Enhancing decision quality through advanced investor intelligence: the hidden engine of competitive advantage
In today’s volatile and hyper-competitive markets, the difference between a market leader and an also-ran often comes down to one crucial factor: decision quality. While product innovation, brand recognition and capital access are still important, it is the consistency and accuracy of decisions — particularly strategic, operational, and financial ones — that sets enduring winners apart in terms of valuation. For public companies, this is especially true at the management team and IR level, where every choice can ripple across long-term growth trajectories, investor perception and ultimately valuation.
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Small (and a mid) caps hit big: Aecon, Calian and TransAlta take three apiece at the IR Impact Awards – Canada 2025
In an event packed with the highest achieving IR teams in Canada, it was two small-cap companies and a mid-cap firm that punched hardest, with Aecon Group, Calian Group and TransAlta Corporation each taking home three IR Impact Awards at the black-tie ceremony in Toronto last night. TransAlta took the trophy for best overall investor relations and best investor relations officer for Tamara Cook – both in the mid-cap category – as well as winning its sector award in utilities. The two small-cap companies also won some of the most prestigious awards of the night, with Aecon claiming best overall…
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What does Trump’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ mean for IR?
After weeks of warnings, Donald Trump finally revealed his full suite of new industry tariffs from the White House Lawn on Wednesday. Announcing the slew of trade measures as ‘Liberation Day’, the US president said that the economic policies would mark the day American industry was ‘reborn’ and the day the country was ‘made wealthy again’. For many IROs, it will herald a period of volatility and uncertainty as they scramble to find out what the implications of those moves will be on their companies.
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Building from a baseline: how IR teams are using new data sources to unlock smarter decision-making
As any IR professional knows all too well, the market is awash with a wealth of data from myriad sources. Everything from earnings calls to websites to press releases – both from your company and from your peers – can help inform strategic IR work. But where do you start without becoming completely overwhelmed? This was what panelists Erik Carlson, chief operating officer at Notified, Glenn Schulman, founder and head of IR at Z3 BioCommunications, and Amanda Tang, head of IR at TMX Group, tackled in a recent IR Impact Webinar, held alongside Notified.
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‘Err on the side of transparency’: Dave Bezanson on how to execute a successful earnings
Ahead of our upcoming IR Impact Forum – Canada, set to be held in Toronto on April 3, we have caught up with some of the event’s leading speakers to understand their outlook for investor communications in Canada.
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Fluent in the language of IR: Duolingo wins big at IR Impact Awards – US
Language-learning giant Duolingo was the big winner among a room full of IR excellence at the IR Impact Awards – US in New York on March 26. The firm took home two of the most coveted gongs of the night: best overall investor relations (mid-cap) and best investor relations officer (mid cap) for Debbie Belevan. Duolingo also topped its sector category, winning the best in technology trophy against fierce competition.
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SEC releases decisions on DEI proposals under new 14a-8 guidance
The SEC’s initial decisions on whether companies may exclude shareholder proposals under new guidance continue to suggest no blanket indicators of how the agency’s staff will land on certain topics – including in the high-profile diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) space. That’s according to another provisional analysis by IR Impact sister site Governance Intelligence of 14a-8 decisions published by the division of corporation finance since it released Staff Legal Bulletin (SLB) No 14M on February 12
