The ICR Westwicke Blog is designed to deliver information and insights into the ever-changing world of healthcare communications.
Sell ratings got you bothered? Can’t shake the feeling that an analyst is holding a grudge? Wish you could just make them go away?
Let’s discuss your negative analyst strategy in 3 steps:
- Remember the big picture
- Avoid the pitfalls
- Engage and execute
1. Remember the big picture.
There will always be analysts who are negative on your company. They won’t go away. Why?
As CEOs and CFOs, you no doubt think long and hard about the investment bank with which you want to work. Most management teams consider which investment bankers can best help meet their company’s capital raising and strategic needs, as well as which bank’s sell-side analysts will provide quality research coverage of the company. However, it is also important to consider how impactful the bank’s institutional equity sales force is.
Whether you are already public or thinking of going public, you want to work with a sales force that has real influence in the investment community. Importantly, you want to engage a team that has solid, long-term relationships with those investors who will be buying your stock.
Tags: investment bankers, investor relations, ipo
Smaller-cap companies, like many of those in the health services, life sciences and medical technology sectors, experience more volatile stock price action than some of their mid- and large- cap peers. These small companies tend to lack the liquidity of larger firms and are therefore more vulnerable to news events (and often, big price movements will occur for no reason at all). For the executives and investor relations professionals of these companies, such price movements can be gut-wrenching.
In their quest for a solution to stock price volatility, some management teams monitor stock price movements on a daily basis and try to find explanations for this movement. This short-term focus is often non-productive and can even be distracting. It’s better for executives to concentrate on building long-term, sustainable shareholder value by providing the Street with identifiable milestones and successfully achieving those milestones.
When done well, an Analyst Day (or Investor Day) is an extremely valuable investor relations tool. Typically a half- or full-day event your company hosts for buy- and sell-side analysts, an analyst day meeting can significantly enhance an analyst’s understanding of your company’s fundamentals, as well as aid them in better valuing your stock. At Westwicke, we have participated in hundreds of analyst days over our careers, and this experience lends valuable third-party perspective that has helped many companies hold successful analyst day events. To that end, I offer some do’s and don’ts for analyst days compiled over Westwicke’s years on Wall Street:
Do hold an analyst day every 18-24 months. The event provides investors with a deeper-than-normal dive into your company, and helps demonstrate your management team’s breadth and strategic vision.
Do provide unique content. Think about including members of the management team that investors don’t normally interact with. Consider bringing in physician experts or customers to provide an outsider’s perspective on your products or market. In the planning stages, ask both buy- and sell-side analysts for input.
How do you balance your investor relations (IR) activities with the other demands on your time as a management team? How can you best align your investor relations efforts with your overall corporate strategy and messaging? Here are several tips to help ensure that the strategic investor relations plan you create at the beginning of the year will deliver the desired results:
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest” – Benjamin Franklin
Welcome to the new blog of Westwicke, the largest healthcare-focused investor relations and capital markets advisory firm in the country. Here, we’ll be sharing wisdom, insights and knowledge about all aspects of investor relations (IR) and the capital markets with a specific emphasis on what’s important for CEOs, CFOs and IROs at life sciences, medical technology, and healthcare services/HCIT companies.
Who we are
All of the members of the Westwicke team who will be penning posts are seasoned Wall Street experts: former sell-side research analysts, buy-side analysts and portfolio managers, investment bankers, institutional salespeople, and equity capital markets professionals. We’ll be sharing our views based on our collective 200 years of Wall Street experience, a deep knowledge of the healthcare industry, and a history of successful strategic partnership with our clients.
