
83% of IPO websites go to US exchanges’ favored vendors
WHEN hospital operator HCA Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: HCA) raised $3.79 billion last week in the largest private-equity backed IPO ever in the US, it chose to host its investor relations information on a website run by Thomson Reuters.

IR vendors in war for US disclosure business
A MAJOR battle is shaping up in the United States between giant Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI), NASDAQ OMX (NASDAQ:NDAQ) and the big PR wire services as they compete for control of companies’ financial disclosures.

Study: Analysts expect more from Turkish IR websites
A STUDY has found a gap between what financial analysts rate as most important and what companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) actually provide on their investor relations websites.

Compendium of IR website best practices published
DESPITE major advances in web technologies over the past few years, most investor relations websites are little different from what they were a decade ago.

5 things that make BASF’s online IR great
AT THE IR Society’s prestigious IR Best Practice Awards in London last night, German chemical company BASF SE (ETR:BAS, PINK:BASFY) walked away the big winner with four awards – 3.5 of which were for its online IR communications.

Reality check: 90% of investor relations websites ignore social media
EVEN though their companies might be using social media for marketing or public relations, more than 90% of 200 investor relations websites reviewed by IR Web Report in the past month failed to direct investors to these channels.
Making sense of the new IR web reality
I TOOK part in a webinar yesterday called “Let’s Get Digital” that was sponsored by the National Investor Relations Institute’s Virtual Chapter. It was the first presentation I’ve done in a while and a good opportunity for me to put some perspective around the many new developments that are happening on the web. My fellow [...]

Are you ignoring your biggest investor audience?
THE biggest audience for any investor relations website is also the one that companies ignore most often. This audience segment is made up of people who know little or nothing about your company and probably aren’t going to learn much more unless you make it extremely easy for them to do so. They are, of [...]
Review: Thomson’s IR website upgrades
THOMSON FINANCIAL, the 800-pound gorilla of corporate investor relations services, recently rolled out new features for its hosted investor relations website product that it promises will “transform” IR websites and improve their “user experience.” In this review, I assess each of the new features and provide my research-based, unbiased opinion on whether they are good, [...]
Effort counts on the Web
THOSE who say that being the best is the only thing that matters are wrong. Effort also counts. Often after reviewing a company’s IR website we’ll come away frustrated that the site missed the mark in certain key respects. We’ll harrumph and wince, but in the end we’ll conclude with something like, “Well, at least they’re trying, which is [...]
Cookie-cutter IR websites bad, says ex-insider
A FORMER employee of a large IR website vendor has written a damning insider’s account of how such firms bully their clients into buying off-the-shelf packages that fail to deliver value to companies and their investors. Lily Napier, who spent six years as a senior IR consultant for Hemscott, the UK equivalent of Thomson Financial [...]
IR websites replace phone for fund manager
REAL IR, the investor relations magazine focused on Europe, has an interesting cover story this month that shines a spotlight on investors’ ever increasing expectations for IR websites. In the article, Niall Paul, 34, who overseas $64 billion in equities for Morley Fund Management in London, says that just over half of the IR websites [...]
Effective IR websites are built on empathy
PEOPLE often ask us what features or content they should add to make their investor relations websites better. Sometimes it’s the first question they ask. Now I wish we had a quick answer for them, but we don’t. Effective websites for investors really don’t start with features and content. They start with understanding investors’ needs [...]