1.5 IR Planning
The strategic issues of Investor Relations are operationalized and placed on a timeline during IR planning.
When will which target groups be addressed with which instruments, topics, and messages? The allocation of resources (IR financial resources, IR personnel) is additionally defined. Not only the management but also the board of directors has to know the annual IR plan. The table below presents an annual plan of this kind. The individual IR measures are described in ➔ Chapter 6.
What Is a «Quiet Period» and Why Is It Needed?
Many listed companies have a trading blackout period, also known as a quiet period, for the management and the employees who are involved in the annual and interim financial statements. This is an appropriate time frame, generally between four and eight weeks before the quarterly or annual results are published, in which purchasing and selling shares in the company is prohibited.
In parallel to this, many companies limit their IR during the same period, for example by not arranging individual talks with investors or conducting meetings at investor conferences, in order to ensure that all shareholders are treated equally and that no information of any kind on the forthcoming results leaks. Issuers occasionally also publish this quiet period on their website. The timeframe for the quiet period must be published in the corporate governance report.
Template for an IR Plan for Small and Mid Caps
Annual Objectives
- Sharpen the equity story: Growth/investment focus for the next three to five years in sector A; sector C on the test bench
- Derived from that, and in very general terms, better matching of market expectations with the company’s own financial projections
- Expand investor base (in addition to Switzerland, UK, and the US) in Germany and Scandinavia
- Improve level of knowledge about the perception of the company held by institutional investors
Annual IR Plan
