Buy side
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Measuring site tour success: what it takes to get people out of offices and into yours – and why these events remain as important as ever
‘One of the biggest benefits of getting investors on the ground with us is that they get to experience the culture of Tractor Supply,’ explains Mary Winn Pilkington, the firm’s senior vice president, investor relations and public relations, talking about some of the drivers behind bringing analysts and investors out of their financial centers and into the real world of Tractor Supply Company. ‘You can talk about culture on an earnings call or put it on a slide, but it is very different when you see it firsthand. When investors spend time with our store managers, meet our vendor partners,…
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The shareholder you cannot win but cannot ignore: why IR should take a new look at the idea of passive ownership
The rise of index investing has created a strange problem for investor relations. Some of the largest shareholders on a company’s register may be investors that IR cannot persuade to buy another share. You can improve disclosure, sharpen the equity story, hold a brilliant capital markets day and convince the market that the company is materially undervalued. An active fund manager can respond by increasing their position. An index tracker generally cannot. Its mandate, rather than its conviction, largely determines how much it owns. And yet that same shareholder may have a meaningful say on remuneration, board appointments, capital allocation,…
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People moves: What’s that shiny thing? A new IR director at Umicore
Materials technology and recycling firm Umicore has named Maxime Lopes as its new director of investor relations. Announcing his move on LinkedIn, Lopes posted a picture of a mystery, shiny nugget of…something. ‘What’s this shiny thing?’ he asked his network on the site. ‘It’s one of several critical raw materials refined as part of Umicore’s closed-loop activities and something you might be hearing more about soon. Brownie points to anyone who guesses. ‘In fact – it’s just one of the many fascinating topics I’ve been diving into since joining Umicore as director of investor relations in July. A big thank…
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Your investors are asking AI about you. Is it telling the right story?
Increasingly, investors are using generative AI to conduct preliminary due diligence, compare companies, summarize earnings calls and understand unfamiliar industries. While large language models (LLMs) do not replace fundamental research, they are rapidly becoming the first stop for many investment questions. Reflecting this shift, 30 percent of US retail investors now use AI tools to help make investment decisions, up 75 percent from a year earlier. Unlike traditional search engines, LLMs synthesize information from a network of public sources – including SEC filings, company websites, earnings call transcripts, news coverage, executive interviews and investor presentations. The more consistently your company’s…
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The CFO: ‘The biggest lesson is not to overcommit; that’s a surefire way to lose credibility,’ says Hut 8 finance chief
Mark Eidelman, who joined energy infrastructure firm Hut 8’s IR team from NextEra Energy in June 2026, isn’t the first person to hold the head of IR position at the company. But, as CFO Sean Glennan explains, there was something of a gap between Sue Ennis’ leaving in March 2026 and Eidelman’s appointment. That’s because of how important IR is to the company, explains Glennan: management wanted to take their time to make sure the hire was just right. In the interim, Glennan himself dived right into the IR work. Here, he talks to IR Impact about taking the conservative…
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If AI cannot understand your equity story, then neither can the market
For decades, investor relations focused on one overarching objective: shaping market perception. Companies invested in perception studies to understand how investors, analysts and the financial media viewed their strategy, competitive positioning, and long-term value creation.
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How Anta Sports broadened its investor reach – and took home three IR Impact trophies in the process
Multiple factors – from geopolitics to regulatory changes and capital movements – have been reshaping the Hong Kong equity market in recent years, driving companies like Hong-Kong-listed Anta Sports to shift their IR strategies to better focus on long-term institutional investors, strengthened ESG credentials and expanded engagement with global fund managers. Suki Wong, vice president of IR at the sportswear firm, talks to IR Impact about her award-winning IR strategy and how she has been attracting shareholders with that coveted long investment horizon. At the IR Impact Awards – Greater China 2025, Anta Sports took home the trophies for best…
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‘It strengthens your credibility, reinforces you as a trusted source and makes you a go-to person internally’: Technip Energies’ Phillip Lindsay on winning two IR Impact awards
Vice president of investor relations at engineering and technology firm says that the key is to focus less on reporting activity and more on explaining the impact to investors For many IR teams, reaching the top of their profession can be a long process. For Phillip Lindsay, vice president of investor relations, Technip Energies. But for those who follow IR Impact, the ascent of Technip Energies – a French, Euronext Paris-listed engineering and technology company that services the energy industry and chemicals sector – to IR excellence has been a little swifter. Appearing on three shortlists at the IR Impact…
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SpaceX IPO shines light on the market structures that shape valuation – and IR
This week’s IPO by SpaceX will not be just a record-setting transaction; it will also become a stress test for equity market structure. Its early trading performance will be shaped, at least initially, by index-inclusion rules and it will pose a challenge for both passive capital and active management. In this deal, the market is not buying only ‘a good story’ but also a supply-and-demand structure. The most important point is that, against an estimated valuation of $1.75 tn dollars, the company is looking to raise ‘only’ $75 bn dollars. In other words, what actually comes to market is only…
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Surviving the ‘agent AI vs agent AI’ paradigm in shareholder targeting
If you remember the 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix, humanity eventually realizes that to survive in a world governed by sentient machines, they must deploy their own autonomous programs to fight back. If you have been in investor relations long enough, you might feel as though we are waking up to a similarly stark reality in 2026. We have officially entered the ‘agent AI vs agent AI’ paradigm.
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How IR teams are driving value with market intelligence in an increasingly passive market
The structure of the global equity market has transformed dramatically over the last three decades – and investor relations teams now operate in a landscape where passive capital is not just influential, but dominant. Passive strategies represented only a sliver of US equity fund assets in the early 1990s. Today, they account for more than half of the investable market, and their share is still expanding.
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Playbook: The value of IR in an increasingly passive investment landscape
ETFs, index funds and other ‘passive’ instruments are making up an increasingly large part of the investment universe. But such investors are far from passive in their appetite for engagement from IR teams and are increasingly demanding specialized attention from issuers. Understanding how fund flows are impacting companies – and turning that data into actionable, strategic intelligence – is a key challenge facing IROs in 2026.
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‘I had four meetings, one in a restaurant with great Texas steaks’: Inside Infineon’s IR-only day in Dallas
If you’re going to travel from Germany to the US to roadshow, what’s a few extra miles here or there? For Alexander Foltin, head of IR and group treasurer at Infineon Technologies, it makes sense to try to maximize the return on a transatlantic travel – which is what brought him to Dallas and Denver last year. Foltin shares his wider thoughts on Dallas in the IR Impact Roadshow Report 2026, where you can also find tips, tricks and roadshow commentary from other leading IR professionals. ‘Dallas was first put on the map for us from the debt side,’ he…
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‘We went public into a bear market’: Lithium Royalty Corp’s head of IR on the buy-side-into-IR learning curve
Lithium Royalty Corp’s IR lead didn’t come to the profession through the more typical paths of corporate finance or a transition from the sell side. As Jonida Zaganjori tells IR Impact, she took on her first IR role fresh from working at a Toronto money manager, an experience that has guided her approach to relationship building on the other side of the table. You can read more from Zaganjori in the IR Impact Global Roadshow Report 2026, where she shares her views on divvying up the CFO and the CEO’s time as well as her favorite city to visit. We…
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Why capital allocation is the new equity story in the AI era
A familiar pattern is dominating the current earnings season: companies deliver clean beats on revenue and earnings – then see their shares wobble or sell off as management outlines higher-than-expected capex and a longer-dated investment phase. Alphabet and Amazon are prominent examples, but the takeaway for CFOs and IROs is broader: capital allocation has become the equity story. In an AI-driven market, the debate is no longer simply about growth. It’s about how that growth is funded, how long elevated investment will persist and what returns the capex is expected to generate. Investors aren’t punishing ambition; they’re repricing capital intensity,…
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The Polish miracle: How IR is finally catching up in the ‘second Japan’ predicted to outstrip the UK’s GDP
A new wave of Polish tech firms are bringing IR into the spotlight – shown by record attendance at the Polish IR Association conference at the end of 2025 Something is changing on the Polish IR scene. While the country’s economy has been booming – and booming – it is only in the past year that investor relations has begun to get its dues. That’s according to Adam Kalkusinski, CEO, head of IR at ccgroup, speaking to IR Impact on the tails of the Polish IR Society conference late last year, where he talked about the trends that would be…
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The CFO: ‘Good investor conversations are indicative of really good IR,’ says Essentra finance chief
Rowan Baker talks to IR Impact from inside the world of hidden – but essential – components In our first installment of The CFO for 2026, we talk to Rowan Baker, Essentra finance chief, about what she looks for from investor relations, why should moved out of the capital markets and back again and why being lower profile but essential helps drive a ‘great business’.
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Proxy season 2026: What to expect from rule 14a-8 changes
Governance experts share their predictions for the upcoming proxy season following the SEC’s pullback around shareholder proposals Among the tumult of 2025 was a November announcement from the SEC stating that it would reduce oversight of shareholder proposal disputes. Blaming ‘current resource and timing considerations following the lengthy government shutdown,’ the regulator said that it would end ‘substantial’ reviews of no-action requests under rule 14a-8, with the change applying to the proxy season running from October 2025 to September 2026 – as well as anything it hadn’t got to before the decision was made. You can read more about the…
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Janet Craig: Ten things I am doing to up my IR game in 2026
Predictably, as I moved into the New Year, I thought about what I wanted to accomplish over the coming 12 months. There are many opportunities for professional development, but my focus is on areas where I can hone my craft, build relationships and pay it forward. Here are 10 IR things I want to do in 2026:
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Looking back at a year of ‘The CFO’: How finance chiefs measure IR success
We’re rounding up another year of IR Impact’s flagship interview series The CFO, where we talk investor relations with finance chiefs from around the world. January 2026 will mark two years of speaking to finance leaders about all things IR. Kurt Barton from Tractor Supply Company was first in The CFO seat two years ago and Dominique Barker, CFO and head of sustainability at Canada’s Lithium Royalties Corp, closed 2025. We always ask CFOs a question about how they measure the success of their IR program, as the nature of the profession makes it notoriously difficult to assess. But proving…
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The CFO: ‘Too much material can be a detractor to investment,’ says Lithium Royalty Corp finance chief
When she took the top finance role at Toronto-headquartered Lithium Royalty Corp, Dominique Barker brought her experience on the buy side, the sell side and in ESG advisory – all of which feeds into her approach to investor relations and sustainability. In the closing interview of our 2025 series of The CFO, Barker talks to IR Impact about finding a host of women in charge at a high-altitude brine, bridging the gap between mining and the energy transition, and the supper club she’s part of with multi-award winning IR Impact Awards judge Janet Craig.
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‘It’s an opportunity to bridge two fast-growing markets’: Lessons from Emsteel Group on engaging Middle Eastern investors
As IROs look beyond traditional financial hubs to diversify their shareholder base, the Middle East represents a new and strategic capital venture. But with sovereign wealth funds, family offices and institutional investors playing an increasingly influential role in international markets, many companies still find the road to meaningful engagement in this region unclear.
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‘We have radically rethought how to look at sustainability’: Christian Granquist on AP7’s new outlook
Christian Granquist joined AP7, one of Sweden’s national public pension funds – into which some 6 mn Swedes pay – in August 2025. Working alongside Jessica Eskilsson Frank, Granquist is senior portfolio manager, impact investments, climate transition at the globally invested fund that has total assets of around $150 bn. Before joining AP7, Granquist – who has a master’s in economics from Uppsala University – had a 10-year stint at Lancelot and worked at Handelsbanken for 13 years in a number of roles including chief investment strategist and co-head, equities. He talks to IR Impact about how the fund is…
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How pre-IPO investor relations shapes long-term market success
The IPO journey doesn’t start on listing day. Companies that treat investor relations as an afterthought until the opening bell often find themselves scrambling to build credibility when it matters most. The statistics tell a sobering story: approximately only one third of newly listed companies outperform their already-listed peers over the long term. Poor financial communication sits at the heart of this underperformance. Building relationships before you need them Establishing an effective IR function well before your IPO creates something money can’t buy on demand: trust. When analysts and investors already know your story, understand your business model and have…
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Philosophy and numbers: IR Impact briefing explores how AI is – and isn’t – changing earnings
‘Investors, analysts – everyone in financial markets – is consulting a vast amount of increasing data sources to inform their investment decisions,’ said Laurie Havelock, IR Impact editor, kicking off the recent briefing that brought together Jesse Rose, head of IR at Reddit, Dave Bezanson, vice president of IR and pensions at EMERA and Christopher Napolitano, account executive at AlphaSense, the event partner. While data opens up a world of insights, Havelock pointed to the added pressure it brings when IROs must distil everything that is out there into something they can deliver to the board. This, said Napolitano, is…
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Meira Muscat 2025: From the role of the exchange to SWFs and debt IR
Over the past few years, the IR platform in the Middle East has been evolving quickly. Exchanges are maturing, listings are more regular and IR is moving beyond ‘results day’ toward a steadier focus on access, liquidity and clear communication. We’re seeing more structured targeting, more emphasis on guidance and capital allocation and better use of data that investors can actually work with. Sovereign funds are engaging in more targeted ways and many issuers are doing a better job of aligning the equity and debt stories. This came through clearly in Muscat. With more than 1,200 attendees in town, the…
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Building an IR function: a strategic roadmap to success
From getting management buy in to running an IR audit and building an investor pipeline – a break down of the essentials that elevate the IR program Investor relations has come a long way. What used to be a compliance checkbox is now a strategic discipline that directly impacts your cost of capital, liquidity and valuation. The question isn’t whether IR adds value anymore, it’s whether you’re building the function correctly. This evolution changes how you build your team for success – whether you are expanding the IR department, coming in fresh, building out the team from scratch or growing…
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‘I felt a mix of respect and fear’ going into IR, says Infineon’s multiple award-winning IR lead
German semiconductor firm Infineon Technologies has had a busy year. To start with, as revealed in the latest instalment of The CFO column, Dr Sven Schneider, the firm’s finance chief, told IR Impact about the 30 conferences and 20 roadshows the company has held this year. It has also been a year of huge success for the IR team, which took home some of the most prestigious IR Impact trophies at the Europe Awards in June, winning the best overall investor relations (large cap) category as well as the gong for best in sector, technology. The same night also saw…
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Why listed companies should engage with hedge funds
I have been working as an IR professional for almost 15 years. To my continued surprise, I still meet peers who remain negative around hedge funds. In fact, they actively seek to minimize interaction. And if they do allow such meetings, they squeeze hedge fund managers into large group meetings, normally led by IR rather than management. To me, this approach is counterproductive. The role of the IR department is to safeguard a fair valuation of the share by communicating correctly to all relevant corners of the financial markets. I strongly believe that open doors and strong relationships improve liquidity…
