The ICR Westwicke Blog is designed to deliver information and insights into the ever-changing world of healthcare communications.
Your investor presentation is one of the first things that investors and analysts look for (along with SEC filings) when trying to get up to speed on your company. It’s often the first chance to tell your story in a crafted manner.
In other words, it’s crucial.
An effective deck contains a clear communication of management’s vision, the company’s market opportunity, its competitive advantages, and its growth strategy.
While the window for IPOs has been closed for most of this year, there have been signs of hope recently, with several transactions being priced. However, some bankers we speak to think it may not be until early 2017 that the overall market for life sciences companies really comes back.
Although disappointing for management teams that are trying to responsibly conserve their cash until better days, we think the wait could actually be a good thing for many companies. The extra time allows you to better polish your story and message, and build critical new relationships with potential investors. We think the remainder of 2016 is a pivotal time to be busily prepping ahead of a potential upturn in the market.
One of the more common things we hear from current and prospective clients is their desire to get more coverage from the sell side. This is particularly the case when the company is smaller in size, is a “restart,” or is an international company looking to list on one of the U.S. stock exchanges. Here are a few things to consider as you look to expand your sell-side coverage.
Background:
The Division of Corporation Finance (the Division) is a branch of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that supports the SEC’s mission to “protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.” Among its duties, the Division “provides interpretive assistance to companies with respect to SEC rules and forms and makes recommendations to the Commission regarding new rules and revisions to existing rules.” This duty is performed, in part, through the issuance of Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (or “C&DIs”) on a variety of subjects.
In investor relations, credibility is everything. When your authority is damaged, everything you tell the Street will be filtered through the jaded minds of professional skeptics who remember your past failure to deliver, or a time they felt misdirected. That’s why it’s vital to maintain a constant focus on sustaining and growing your level of trust with investors.
If you are a healthcare company executive who is contemplating, in the process of, or has completed an IPO, chances are you have met with a number of investment banks. In these meetings, each bank shows a varying number of league tables that position the bank in a positive light relative to its peers. The data presented is useful for finding banks active in your space, but the parameters defining the table can be adjusted to portray any institution in a position of relative strength. The bottom line is that investment banks are good at what they do, and all of their bankers are bright, diligent, capable, client-focused, and extremely hard-working professionals. Without these attributes, they would not be in such a role.
The goal of exemplary investor relations at any publicly listed company should be the achievement of a fair market valuation. However, for those working in an IR function for a biotech firm, it’s important to understand that how the market values your company will be quite different from how it values any other.
While companies in every other industry are valued based on their expected profitability compared with cash flows and other potential investments, biotechs are typically expected to lose money in the short- and medium-term, attaining profitability only a long time into the future. And that future is subject to a substantial amount of risk.
Providing investors with guidance is a key component of any IR program. It is a company’s main avenue to set expectations. Management credibility, an important factor in a company’s valuation, is significantly driven by delivering on these expectations.
When providing guidance, we recommend that you keep these important themes in mind:
Maintaining a vibrant and compelling shareholder base is one of your management team’s most important responsibilities. Your current major investors need to feel that you know them and are available to them when necessary. Yet you must also be thinking constantly about attracting new investors to your company.
Companies ask us frequently for ideas on how they can broaden their investor base, so I polled our team for some of their best responses.
Thousands of public companies have just released their quarterly earnings and held those dreaded earnings calls — far more dreaded for those whose numbers missed estimates. While they’re not much fun for anyone, it can’t be overstated how important earnings calls are for your reputation as a leader and for the prospects for your stock.
The call is your chance to communicate your story to the world, to put your perspective formally into the public record. And it’s your investors’ and analysts’ chance to seek clues about your future prospects. In short, the call is something you just can’t afford to mess up.
