Who ‘owns’ the corporate story?

Mention the word ‘disclosure’ to a corporate communicator or IR person, and different images pop into people’s minds, all depending on exactly where in the spectrum they fit. For some it is ‘inside information’ being delivered in real time to the market, for others it’s the details in the back end of annual report. For still others, the technology of how it is achieved that is the key.
2 things prompted this thought.

First the (excellent) IR Society conference, which included an optional session on reporting in a digital age. Much of the discussion centred on the annual report, and its journey towards being online. (Sidebar; one attendee commented that fewer companies were maintaining HTML annual reports on their websites; why should this be? Isn’t it the way of the future after all? My view was that there still concerns about the distinctions between the audited and non audited sections of the report. Others considered that tools to create a personalised PDF report – remember the Daily Me? – was more important than HTML).

Second, a useful new research from Citigate DR on the state of play in the IR world. The words that jump out for me are “long term”. From last year’s caution about predicting the future, and hence lack of guidance, the survey finds a sharp rise in the numbers of companies now prepared to offer, in some cases in hard numbers, views about their prospects.

For me, this begs a question: who ‘owns’ the company reporting story? How do we achieve consistency between the messaging, especially about the future, that appears in the different reporting events? For example, is a trading update consistent with the investor presentations AND the annual report? Is the long term story – and guidance – provided throughout the year harmonised?

And do the technical tools of disclosure – the web, video, social media, iPhone apps, XBRL, structured databases, results tweets... all convey a consistent impression for investors?

If so, how does this happen?

TOD up for review – what’s new?

The Transparency Obligations Directive (TOD) will be reviewed this year by the European Commission Internal Markets Directorate (DG Markt). Last year, a report was published, with a review of what stakeholders thought should change. These changes will potentially affect the activities of providers of service to IR professionals in several areas.

In the major shareholdings (shareholder ID), there are ideas around upgrading TOD to include short selling, stock lending, derivatives, as well as (controversially) for investors to provide more detailed information on their intention when borrowing stock, harmonising the thresholds of disclosure, as well as lowering the minimum standard to 2 or 3%.

In corporate reporting there is less controversy, with general support for the timing and content of disclosures, including especially interim management statements.

Meanwhile in news dissemination and storage, again general support for the PIP/SIP regime, but some interesting ideas around how and where storage could be undertaken. Also, the genie of “an EDGAR for Europe” is out of the bottle, and what role the regulators/ exchanges should play.

The Commission plans to host a meeting to discuss all of this in June. I for one plan to be there!