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Europe Awards 2010 - Research
How we choose the winners
Underlying the IR Magazine Awards is a body of research that identifies the best corporate IR teams and provides a window into the thinking of IR’s most important audience. This survey is the only one of its kind to go directly to the investment community via one-to-one telephone interviews, canvassing the opinions of the people who matter to you most.
February: The sample selection
IR magazine has been building investment community databases over the past 20 years. As part of the updating process, listed companies are contacted every year for details of the professionals who currently cover their stock. This data is then passed to Mary Maude Research, whose first step is to produce a representative sample, weighted for Europe’s industry sectors and geographical regions, in line with the MSCI Pan-European Sector Weightings. As the research progresses, the sample is constantly adjusted to ensure appropriate weightings are maintained.
March-April: The survey
The researchers conduct in-depth, 15-20 minute telephone interviews with some 800 portfolio managers and analysts in Europe. Many of them participate in the study year after year, but there’s a healthy proportion of new respondents each year as well.
To provide context for the research, the researchers start by asking about topical issues, such as whether IROs are now providing adequate guidance and access again, following the return to more stable equity markets. They then move on to discussing the individual companies the analysts and portfolio managers follow, and respondents name the three or four that give them the best IR service in a range of areas of IR activity.
Full list of categories
Late April: Results analysis
Once the survey stage of the research is completed, it’s all math. The companies with the highest point scores make the short lists for the awards categories, and the points are also analyzed by sector to identify which companies are the best exponents of IR in their industry.
The independence of our research is crucial to the integrity of the whole awards program, so IR magazine sees the results only once the research is complete. This ensures a transparent, independent set of results that IROs can trust as a valuable benchmarking tool.
May: Short list announced
IR magazine receives the results in late April and contacts all short-listed companies to give them the good news. The short list is then published to the entire IR community a month before the event.
June 30: Winners announced
And finally... on the night of the awards, the names of the winners are revealed and they receive their coveted trophies.
July 1: Report published
The results and analysis, along with verbatim comments from respondents and the full rankings of the leading companies – in overall terms as well as by sector and by category of IR activity – are compiled into a report and published as the Investor Perception Study, Europe 2010 the day after the awards.
To pre-order the report, contact Dragan Sasic on +44 20 7251 7500.