The ICR Westwicke Blog is designed to deliver information and insights into the ever-changing world of healthcare communications.
Special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) activity has exploded in the past two years, from 59 transactions in 2019, to 248 deals in 2020, to 308 SPACs so far in 2021. However, SPACs are not new. This type of transaction has been around for decades, continually evolving as it rises and falls in popularity.
Going public is a transformational event that gives companies the capital they need to invest in future growth, attract top talent, and raise their profile, while providing liquidity to investors and employees.
Unlike quiet periods following an IPO, which are closely regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), end-of-quarter quiet periods are more loosely defined and not strictly regulated.
Right after you report earnings is the ideal time to get out on the road and tell your story to the Street. Sell-side analysts are incentivized to market with management teams, so they are always willing to sponsor a non-deal road show (NDRS).
In 2018, we wrote a piece on best practices to manage and communicate with the growing retail investor community. While the basic tenants of those recommendations hold today, the retail investor has fundamentally changed over the last couple of years.
One of our clients, a recently public diagnostics company, settled an ongoing royalty dispute with a major pharmaceutical company. The settlement amount was significantly lower than what our client had accrued, resulting in nearly $750 thousand upside to their P&L in the upcoming quarter.
No one would argue that 2020 was unique and challenging for almost every industry, including healthcare. The year forced both public and private companies to reconsider many aspects of how they do business and communicate with the investment community. As we all adapted and learned, our Westwicke blog covered a variety of investor relations topics, both pandemic related and not. Below are some of the most popular blog posts we published this year.
Many public companies withdrew, or never introduced, formal financial guidance in spring 2020 as a result of severe and widespread business disruption and the high level of uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. We are now roughly two weeks into the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 earnings reporting season and wanted to share a few notable trends and key considerations that public company management teams should bear in mind as they evaluate whether to give formal financial guidance for 2021.
As the Biden Administration begins to implement its agenda, and with the 117th Congress now fully controlled by Democrats, the pace of activity in Washington is poised to accelerate. In this post, we have detailed a cross section of the Biden Administration’s domestic priorities, provided analysis of them, and offered a strategic overview of how companies can position themselves to simultaneously benefit from this activity and, importantly, prepare in the event they become the focus of unwanted scrutiny.
The 2021 Westwicke / ICR Conference went virtual this year — and like many in-person events suddenly turned remote, attendees found new and unexpected opportunities for connecting with each other. Namely, the ability, finally, to be in two meetings at once.
