Prospective and new flotations - where do you start? Susan Bradley

As a newly listed company on the London Stock Exchange you could be excused for feeling both excited and overwhelmed by the changes and challenges ahead, such as;

Consideration of your first annual report

• Ways to leverage your investor relations website to attract future investment.
• How to efficiently and cost-effectively communicate with your shareholders - using both electronic and printed mediums
• What does current and forthcoming legislation demand? How can we keep abreast of latest guidelines and best practice in investor communications?

Of key importance is being aware of all the legislative requirements and deadlines required. These are best addressed by planning within a financial calendar. The administration required behind to effectively address all projects throughout the year should not be underestimated and it is essential that the logistics of all the required actions are considered and planned for well in advance.

What should be planned within your financial calendar?

• Quarterly, Interim and Annual Reports
• Annual General Meeting
• Institutional investor/analyst meetings
• Media briefings
• Shareholder meetings
• Roadshows
• Web casts and conference calls

Whilst many of these will be successfully handled in-house or together with your Financial PR agency, it is important to gain in-sight from professionals who will understand the best practice and legislative requirements of some of the key projects, most critically the annual report, IR website and electronic communications and it is these areas we will consider here. With over 40 years experience, Jones and Palmer can offer you advice and guidance every step of the way.

Undoubtedly, the single, largest project in the year will be the production of your company Annual Report. You may choose to produce a clear and simple financial report. Whilst this is your choice, you should also remember that it can be so much more. As a creative marketing tool your Annual Report can help raise your profile with current and potential investors and provide a real insight into your company. Your partner in the project should be able to demonstrate their experience and knowledge in this field whilst ensuring their employees maintain confidentiality on the sensitive information that is shared with them. They should encourage a free dialogue and want to learn about your business, as this is the only way they will learn about the important messages you want to get across to your audience. You also need to feel confident that the project will run as smoothly as possible, to budget and on time. As an aside, the first job of the report is to inform your own shareholders, so take time to ensure that your Registrar has been updated of any changes and that your mailing list is completely up to date.

Working alongside your printed document, you also need to think of how information can be produced electronically, enabling it to be accessed anywhere (now a requirement of the Companies Act). Is it a simple matter of placing your PDF on your website? Or can you do better than that? Jones and Palmer can help you improve the accessibility of your information using an interactive HTML version. This will improve the functionality with additional tools, such as downloading financials via Xbrl into spreadsheets, links to RNS feeds, subscriptions to RSS feeds and integrating videos of Investor Presentations, which will all add value to your message. Electronic communications can provide a real cost-effective and complementary way of keeping stakeholders informed and encourages a two way dialogue. New tools such as video presentations and share price feeds can all enhance the traditional information shareholders have received in the past, with the added benefit of information being made available in real time and to a much wider audience. Make use of email alerts to alert key stakeholders of changing information whilst remembering to keep this relevant and not to overload people – who will some become disenfranchised if you keep filling their ‘inbox’! Remember that the Companies Act 2006, states that you must either amend your articles of association or pass a resolution at your next AGM before you are able to communicate electronically with your shareholders (see 'Survival Guide to Companies Act 2006 - Electronic Communications with shareholders' for more information).

Your investor relations website is an essential tool to increase awareness with investors/potential investors. Jones and Palmer can advise on how this can work, alongside or independently from your commercial sites, ensuring all your branding identity guidelines are adopted.

Start to think about the audiences you are aiming at and endeavour to address their needs. For example, if a potential investor cannot easily find the cash flow information they are looking for, what will they do? Keep on searching, pick up the phone or move on to the next company who will most likely have addressed this within an easy to navigate website? Also, do be aware that the Disability Discrimination Act 2007 requires you to ensure that site fully adheres to those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments.

Ensure that you are able to update your site on a timely basis. A Content Management System (CMS) that can be easily adopted by your own staff will make this even more effective. Take the time to track who has visited your site and amend the content/structure accordingly. For example, monitor your web stats to see the most used items on your site and consider highlighting these on your home page, perhaps with a direct link. This information can help to improve the usefulness of your site. Search engine optimisation is of critical importance, as there is no point having a great site if no-one can find it. Again, ensure your partner has proven skills in this area. Jones and Palmer provide a user-friendly system that can easily be used by anyone with word processing skills without compromising your search engine listings.

What next?

As an integrated part of your full financial calendar, your annual report, investor relations website and electronic communications can fundamentally transform how you are perceived by the investment market. The combination of both printed and electronic media, using historic and latest information, provides greater transparency of information that can only help to meet best practice guidelines and ultimately attract investors and reflect fair value – which is what it is all about! With solutions specifically designed for the investment community, Jones and Palmer are ideally placed to help you as you take your first steps.

To arrange to see a free presentation on how we see investor communications moving over the next few years which could help you to get ahead of the your peers early, save you money and headaches, talk to Jones and Palmer.

This article was written by Susan Bradley (Marketing Executive). We welcome your feedback and thoughts and would love to hear any questions you have.

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Established in 1906, Jones and Palmer has, for the last 40 years, printed annual report and accounts for public listed companies and currently has over 150 plc clients. We are the UK’s largest on-site manufacturer of investor websites and printed annual reports.