28 November 2024

2024 a year of predictable unpredictability

Giles Rafferty
Activism, AGM, All, Analytics, compliance, Cybersecurity, ESG, Perception Study

GILES RAFFERTY, Media and Financial PR

Whether it is ongoing climate change, Donald Trump having another tilt at the US presidency or the emergence of AI, these are all events that have been predicted. How they played out and what impacts they will have are very much subject to unpredictability.

The recently published CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology State of the climate report  highlights how feedback loops between the atmosphere and the oceans are creating greater unpredictability around weather patterns. Few predicted the magnitude of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential race. And from an Investor Relations perspective, AI allows high speed data analysis to support investor targeting but may create unpredictability around the information investors extract from their own, discrete AI powered analysis ahead of investment decisions.

INVESTOR TARGETING

A predictable constant across 2024 was FIRST Advisers monthly newsletters and amongst our most read blogs was Using data to drive investor targeting. FIRST Advisers has the ability to interrogate a Register of Relevant Interests, uncover insights into investor holdings and combine this intelligence with detailed analysis of peer company registers to create an effective, quantitative tool for investor targeting.

CYBERSECURITY AND ACTIVISM

Our blogs on Cybersecurity were also well read. In February we looked at emerging Cybersecurity trends in our Managing cybersecurity risks article. We then revisited this theme in June following the Ticketmaster Data breach, with our What to do if you suffer a cybersecurity breach blog.

Activism was another theme that caught the attention of the FIRST Advisers audience. Our The shape of activism in Australia in August focused on the unique characteristics of Australian activism, while our Has Australian ESG activism peaked? blog explored the post COVID decline in ESG activism in Australia.

AGMS AND PROXY ADVISORS

Our coverage of the hot topics for proxy advisors also featured amongst our more popular blogs. As a prelude to the June/July window for engaging with Proxy Advisors we looked at the “Dos and don’ts” of meeting with Proxy Advisors in our Engaging with Proxy Advisors? blog. We then followed that blog up in September with a review of hot topic issues in our  A climate of change, voting at AGMs blog. All the Proxy Advisory firms were interested to see how companies would respond to the record 41 strikes against ASX 300 rem. reports during the 2023 AGM season.

PERCEPTION STUDIES AND COMPLIANCE

ASX compliance – Avoiding the tendentious and intemperate was a popular standalone blog in July that explored how to avoid reprimands for market releases and presentations that did not meet ASX standards. There was a particular focus on Mining Company disclosures.

Another well read, standalone blog was an explainer on the power of investor perception research, Perception studies supercharge investor relations,  which highlighted the importance of assessing if a company’s investment case is being understood and valued by investors.

While it is not always possible, or even desirable, to predict the future, at FIRST Advisers we are committed to continuing to highlight issues of interest to investor relations in our monthly newsletters through the course of 2025. We stand ready to offer our expert advice and leading analytics capabilities to support investor relations functions and help drive meaningful engagements with shareholders.

30 March 2022

STOCK BORROWING AND LENDING 101

CHRIS HUGHES
All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, IR, IR. Analytics, shareholder

CHRIS HUGHES, Shareholder Analyst The borrowing and lending of shares dates back to the earliest days of stock trading. Put simply, it involves the owner of shares ‘lending’ them to another investor or institution who ‘borrows’ them for a given length of time. Borrowing and lending deals are often transacted by market makers or dealers, […]

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31 May 2021

All you need to know about Short Selling

SALONI SURI
All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, IR, Short Attacks

SALONI SURI, Investor Relations Executive. Overview Short selling is a simple concept—an investor borrows a stock, sells the stock, and then buys the stock back to return it to the lender. In the period between selling borrowed stock and buying it back the investor is said to be ‘Short’ of stock, hence the term short […]

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30 March 2021

Who’s really on your register?

ROWAN CLARKE
All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, IR

IDENTIFYING THE BENEFICIAL OWNERS OF SHARES   ROWAN CLARKE, INVESTOR RELATIONS The ability to interrogate a company’s share register to identify its beneficial owners provides important information to Directors. In addition to identifying who is making decisions to buy and sell shares, it enables the Board and senior management to identify such things as where […]

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30 June 2020

A new number 3 share registry

Giles Rafferty
All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, Registries

GILES RAFFERTY, Corporate Communications. An interview with Ben Kay, Executive Director, Automic At FIRST Advisers our shareholder analytics team works with all registries in the delivery of beneficial ownership analysis reports to our clients. We have watched the increasing penetration of Automic Group as a new player in the registry market in recent years and […]

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30 September 2019

THIS IS WHY MANY OF YOUR RETAIL SHAREHOLDERS DON’T VOTE

Ben Rebbeck
All, Analytics, Shareholder Engagement, Voting

BEN REBBECK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Poor retail voter turnout is often accepted as ‘the norm’ and put down to reasons such as lack of retail investor interest to lack of company engagement. While these factors may partly contribute to poor retail voting, there is one structural cause that is relatively unknown and therefore not addressed by […]

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3 September 2019

FIRST Advisers Annual Guidance Report – FY20

Daniel Jones
All, Analytics, Guidance

DAN JONES, MANAGER SHAREHOLDER ANALYTICS During August we monitored companies in the S&P/ASX300 Index that reported for the period ending 30 June 2019, building a picture of the approach to guidance in this market and what that guidance is telling us about outlook for FY20. Victoria Geddes, Co-founding Executive Director at FIRST Advisers said “If […]

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2 October 2018

The Rising Tide of Passive Investment

Victoria Geddes
AGM, All, Analytics, Investor Tracking

Dan Jones, Shareholder Analytics and IR The popularity of passive investment amongst institutional and retail shareholders continues to grow and for good reason. Passive funds have outperformed active in each year since the GFC. The term ‘passive’, however, may well be misleading. While it does describe a manager’s approach to automated stock selection and investment, […]

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5 March 2018

Analysing Guidance – February 2018

Daniel Jones
All, Analytics, Guidance

Dan Jones, Shareholder Analytics and IR During February we monitored all companies in the S&P/ASX300 Index that reported for the period ending 31 December 2017, building a picture of the approach to guidance in this market and what that guidance is telling us about the outlook for FY2018. There were 214 companies within the S&P/ASX […]

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3 November 2016

The Activist – Pariah or Positive Catalyst for Change?

Victoria Geddes
Activism, All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, IR

VICTORIA GEDDES, ECECUTIVE DIRECTOR The role played by the activist in the US capital markets has moved over the past 10-15 years from pariah to one of being a positive catalyst for change. Today proxy contests associated with nominations of independent directors for board seats are more likely to be won by activists than the […]

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5 July 2016

Short Attacks: The new wolf pack

Victoria Geddes
Activism, All, Analytics, Corp Comms, IR, media relations

VICTORIA GEDDES, ECECUTIVE DIRECTOR Those who have been on the receiving end of a short attack describe the process as akin to being at war, or being pursued by a pack of wolves, with the company’s very destruction their opponent’s goal. A short or bear attack, to make the distinction clear, is not the same […]

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11 February 2016

IR Managers: Think your firm has no peers? Think again!

First Advisers
Access IR, All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, Proxy Solicitation

I’ve heard it time and time again. “We cannot target investors based on a peer analysis because we… …have no peers …no direct peers” …no local peers” …no peers of the same size” To you that subscribe to this view I would like to challenge your definition of a peer. Whilst in your eyes a […]

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30 November 2015

It’s Enough to Give Your CEO Nightmares

First Advisers
Access IR, All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, Proxy Solicitation

FIRST Advisers, Investor Tracking and Solicitation An unknown shareholder has doubled their shareholding in your company overnight but they can’t be identified because they are protected by privacy legislation in their offshore jurisdiction. Or suddenly one day that unassuming one per cent shareholding held in a prime broker intermediary account disappears and is replaced by […]

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22 June 2015

The Right – and Wrong – Way to Target Investors

First Advisers
All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, IR, RORI

Ron Cameron, Senior Adviser, Investor Relations Public companies seeking to court new investors and build relations with existing ones will almost always be told by some register analysis providers that they should focus on targeting those investors with underweight or overweight positions in their stock, relative to a particular index. In other words, it’s those […]

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2 December 2014

7 tips for Soliciting Shareholder Vote

First Advisers
Access IR, All, Analytics, Investor Tracking, IR, Proxy Solicitation

In an age when the interactions between listed companies and their shareholders are increasingly automated and carried out electronically, the relatively low tech practice of soliciting votes still has a decisive role to play when companies need to win support from investors. The two strike rule at annual general meetings, increasingly bold activist investors and […]

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