The Importance of Investor Relations in an Organization

Investor Relations is a perfect combination of finance, communication, and marketing that generates an effective flow of information between a public company and its investors and stakeholders. Investor relations firms are really a strong pivot that drives the overall growth of any company.

The growth and success of a company rely on its investors. Maintaining a healthy and trustworthy relationship with investors is very important for a company to do well. To manage this task, the investor relations department of a company plays a vital role.

This article will discuss in detail what investor relations is, how it works, and why it is crucial.

What do investor relations firms do?

The investor relations office works as a company representative to the investors and then represents the company’s investors. The investor relations officer has the following goals:

  • They help the company to attain an optimum share price that portrays its fundamental value.
  • They efficiently provide the investors the accurate financial information, i.e., retail and informational.
  • To support the company’s valuation, they provide nonfinancial data.
  • Their role is to observe the rules of securities commissions and stock exchange.
  • They promote closing or non-aggressive sales.
  • They present to the board and company management the feedback they receive from the investors.
  • They build receptive capital markets for future financing at favorable terms.

Investor Relations Firms: The Department

By now, we understand how important investors are for a company’s success. Every company is either dependent on the investors to run their operations or grateful to their investors to help them run the company smoothly now that they are self-sufficient. It is very important for companies to build an honest and trustworthy relationships.

To achieve this, companies depend on their investor relations or IR departments. The investor relations office could be limited to one officer or extend to a team of people; it depends on the company’s size and scale, and the number of investors the company has. The IR department works as a communication line that shares information between the investors and the company.

To understand in-depth the importance of investor relations in any company, we have to understand the roles that every team member of the department plays.

Working with Wall Street

The executives who run the company, like the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chief finance officer (CFO), have a lot on their hands. They have to deal with all company matters every day, to help them out in their daily tasks, the Investor relations firms deal with Wall Street. They take the word from them to deliver to the company and act as a communication portal between the company and Wall Street.

The Investor Relations firm represents the company and acts as the face of the company in the capital market. Although the head of the company, i.e., the CEO, is viewed as the company represented by the investors and the stakeholders, when it comes to the inner workings of the top publicly traded companies, the IR officer works as a middle man.

Communication

The main goal of the Investors Relations department is to work as a communication passage between the investors and the company but let’s break it down a bit further.

The first role of the IR department is to act as a triage of the communication channels. When any outsider like investors, or analysts, demands information from the company, they are transferred to the IR department. They act as catcher’s mitt. The IR department handles the sorting out of people and handles the passing off and passing down of people, so the higher executive officers are not burdened with everything. In this way, the executives can focus on their other tasks and do not have to worry about every request of information demanded by the company.

Their second role is translating communication riddles. The IR department translates the language that Wall Street speaks. It means that the IR reads how Wall Street and investors view the company and then conveys this to the company executives. The IR department receives how the investors and stakeholders feel about the company, what they see as assets and flaws, what are they impressed by, what they do not like in the company and wat to be changed, what they do not understand, and what will attract the investors to invest their shares in the company, and deliver it to the company.

The final role of IR is to convey the values, interests, and answers of the company back to Wall Street by converting it into the language they understand like profit margins, projected goals, Earnings Per Share (EPS), and dividends.

Investor Relations Functionality

The IR department serves the company in many ways. The company depends on the functionality of the IR department. We’ve discussed the roles the IR department plays in the smooth running of the company so far, now; let’s take a look at some of their functions:

  • Coordination of meetings
  • Conferences for shareholders and the press
  • Releasing financial information
  • Taking point on financial briefings
  • Filing and publishing report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or other relevant commission (depending on where the company is listed)

As the depart of IR has so many roles and functions, the department must stay fully integrated with the management team, executives, and all the other departments in the company, like the finance and legal departments. Digital IR websites play a vital role in publicly traded companies. Having investor relation websites increases visibility and help investor to analyze the stocks and company performance.

August 09, 2021

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