Competition for investor attention, spurred by the merger craze, has resulted in a groundswell in I/R professionals, whose ranks have grown more than 25 percent, according to Ted Pincus, chairman of the Financial Relations Board and vice chairman of BSMG Worldwide. Meanwhile, communications technology is overhauling the tools of the trade.
Speaking at the Advanced Learning Institute Seminar on Increasing Shareholder Value (University of Chicago), Pincus recently contended that any I/R professional worth her weight in gold will have the following tools in her arsenal:
- A fully-loaded, user-friendly Web site with up-to-the-minute company literature.
- A fax-on-demand system with a full array of materials.
- A fax broadcast system that can issue timely information to an entire database of investors instantly.
- An email list-serv that does the same.
- Fluency in using e-conference services like Vcall, StreetFusion and U.S. Web to reach the 8 million+ U.S. investors currently surfing for ideas (5 million of whom have online brokerage accounts).
- The ability to target institutional investors by electronic correlation.
- The ability to use Web-based teleconferences as a means of connecting top management to investment professionals (and, in some cases, reporters and private investors).
Contact: Bess Gallanis, 312/266-7800.