IHS Markit Perspectives – Investor and Issuer Engagement in Uncertain Times – Part 6

IHS Markit's Perception Analytics team engages in in-depth discussions with investors and analysts daily. Given recent market volatility and significant economic uncertainty, IHS Markit will be speaking to investors and analysts on a regular basis to assess how the current situation with COVID-19 is impacting their evaluations of and engagement with corporate issuers. In our sixth installment, we ask market participants whether they believe work-from-home mandates will spark a paradigm shift for virtual corporate access. Highlights include:

Buy-side investors suggest that with less time spent on the road, management and IR should increase the frequency of investor updates and interactions.

"I am surprised that the access that I have in this environment is a lot better because there are more people willing to speak. The interest in engaging shareholders has actually increased significantly, which is a positive."

Video calls are widely accepted as the most effective tools for conducting virtual meetings in lieu of in-person meetings.

"It is a very good idea to do a webcast presentation with slides and the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the company, especially if it is recorded and put on the company website. If you are going to have this type of presentation, you might as well get the CEO or CFO to do the presentation because you can reach a huge audience with just a day's worth of work."

Transparency and openness are critical to establishing trust and credibility in this environment.

"The biggest things we are focused on are company news and updates, rechecking fundamental factors about companies, and trying to get some sort of details about the impact COVID-19 has had on companies. Frank and open conversation is something that is very important in this type of situation."

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IHS Markit's Perception team will continue to gather real-time market feedback as the situation unfolds, so please look out for the next part of this series.

View Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 , and Part 5.

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This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.