Affiliated Departments
When interacting with the investment community, the Executive Board needs to present accurate and actual understanding of all major issues and developments affecting its businesses. Be it legal, regulatory, accounting, product developments, IT, financial markets etc.
For the IRO, who is most often the person travelling and assisting the member of the Executive Board with these issues, this means he or she should know about all these issues and developments equally. The scope of the IR function is therefore incredibly broad based.
The departments of the company with which the IRO will work mostly are (in random order): treasury; legal; corporate secretary; finance and tax; business development (mergers and acquisitions or M&A, divestitures); communications; HR and the leaders of the major business or market segments.
Treasury
- Responsible for capital market transactions, such as equity issuance/buy-backs, stock splits etc. as well as debt issuance and placements;
- Manage short term liquidity management, financial/market risk management;
- Execute the dividend policy;
- Keep a close eye on share/debt price developments; and
- Are a great source for market intelligence as they maintain relationships with banks/brokers.
Legal
- Rules and regulation from being a listed company (exchange rules, Reg FD, disclaimers etc.);
- Product or service regulation (financial sector, pharma, patents etc);
- Corporate governance;
- Litigation;
- Prospectus for capital market transactions etc.; and
- Strategic business development (M&A, corporate restructurings, etc.).
Corporate secretary
- Generally involved in the organisation of an Annual or Extraordinary General Meeting (AGM or EGM), which may for instance organising the location, logistics etc;
- Determining the Board Calendar, working closely together with the IRO, particularly with respect to all Investor Relations events;
- Usually the linking pin to the members of the Supervisory Board.
Finance/Tax
- Close cooperation to produce financial reports including narratives (Quarterly and FY);
- Internal sparring partner for analyst reports/models and questions;
- Development of additional financial disclosures; and
- Accounting rules and regulation (IFRS, financial impact studies).
Business Development (M&A, divestitures)
- Market positioning – Peer group performance and market analyses;
- Setting / developing corporate strategy;
- M&A transactions; and
- Market intelligence from their counterparts (consultants etc.).
Communications (if and when separate department)
- Organisational and operational aspects of press releases;
- Internal communications;
- General communications/disclosure policy;
- (Financial) Media relations;
- Media monitoring; and
- Annual report, sustainability/integrated reporting.
HR
- Say on pay, executive remuneration and explanation in the annual report;
- Hiring and firing of staff;
- Utilising human capital, talent development;and
- Corporate code of conduct, corporate values etc.
Business/market segment leaders
- Detailed knowledge about products/markets/local competitors etc.; and
- Input and feedback on what IR hears from analysts and investors.
Other departments
Personal assistants
- Making sure you can get to see the Executive Board between their busy meetings.
Drivers
- Delivering information packs to the members of the Executive Board (EB) when necessary, and possibly to bring and pick up people to and from airports.
Internal print/copy shop
- Help to print your final presentation versions etc.
IT
- IT support in certain circumstances, to enable the organisation to make presentations, press releases and other documents in time.