Investor Relations
Your ability to attract and retain new investors is based on your ability to expose prospective and existing investors to positive messages about your company. Your base communications plan will indirectly expose investors to your key messages, but a well-crafted, targeted investor relations communications program can transform passive awareness into active investor interest, investment, and support.
At Walker Sands, we offer our investor relations services to public companies, private companies that plan to go public, and private companies that have a private investor base. Walker Sands professionals have a rich history in investor relations and can work with you to enhance the investment community’s attraction to and perception of your company. The end results can include positive analyst recommendations, a successful investment offering, happy and informed investors, and rising company valuations.
If you’re interested in implementing a new investor relations program or enhancing an existing program, read all about what we do for you and who we know.
What We Do For You
You have specific objectives for your company. Perhaps you are a public company and want more analysts to cover your stock or need help creating a compelling and motivating annual report. Perhaps you are a private company and you want to implement a mechanism to communicate company news to your private investors. Maybe you are looking for a second round of funding and want to be on the radar screen of top-tier private equity firms. Every client has specific objectives, and, as a result, we tailor our investor relations programs to meet your needs.
Certain core principles and activities apply in all cases. Here are some of the many things we do on your behalf:
- Strategic Counsel. We provide strategic executive counsel, assisting you with developing a strong, structured investor relations program and providing ad hoc advice on an ongoing basis. Our assistance is based in a comprehensive knowledge of the investment community and the financial media; years of experience and relationships developed by working on behalf of many companies; and, most importantly, a thorough knowledge of your business and your industry.
- Delivering the Message. We help companies market and position their corporate messages to the investment community. We raise awareness levels regarding your company in the minds of existing investors and prospective investors. We foster understanding and a sense of partnership between you and your investors so that they stick with you when times get tough.
- Establishing and Maintaining Relationships. We develop and extend the base of investor relationships, establishing and maintaining direct relationships between you and key institutional and retail shareholders, sell-side analysts, brokers, market makers and specialists. We work with you to achieve the appropriate investor mix.
- Keeping in Touch. We ensure timely dissemination of corporate news to the investment community and financial media on a regular basis, always in full compliance with securities laws.
- Obtaining Feedback. We obtain valuable feedback for you from the market and use this information to improve your investor relations programs.
- Writing Documents. We bring our superior writing and analytical skills to the table to assist with the creation of key investor-oriented documents, including content for investor presentations, an investor section of your web site, press releases, investor emails, IPO S-1 prospectuses, annual reports, private placement memorandums, and company business plans.
- Planning Events. We help you to organize events for your financial stakeholders. Inviting investors and analysts to company events such as user conferences, seminars, sales meetings and trade shows can deliver great results if structured properly.
- Ensuring Consistency. We ensure not only that investor-oriented communications are clear, forthright and understandable but also that they are consistent with other messages being delivered to other audiences.
Our Connections
Once we’ve worked with you to create an appropriate investor relations communications program, it helps to be able to get return phone calls from the right people. To generate and maintain appropriate investor interest in your company, we leverage a comprehensive and proprietary contact database that we’ve developed, as well our extensive personal network of contacts, including relationships at:
- Investment Banks. Strong relationships with analysts and bankers at top firms such as Alex Brown and Sons; Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette; Goldman Sachs; Hambrecht & Quist; Lehman Brothers; Montgomery Securities; Morgan Stanley; William Blair, and WR Hambrecht, among others.
- Financial Media. Strong relationships with top financial editors and journalists at Bloomberg Online; Business Week; Barrons; CNN Financial News; The Economist; Forbes; Fortune Magazine; Investment Week; International Investor; Money Magazine; Mutual Funds Magazine; The New York Times; and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
- LBOs. Affiliations with leading LBO firms, such as Carlyle Group; Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R); Forstmann Little; Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (HMTF); Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR); and Texas Pacific Group, Inc. (TPG).
- Venture Capital Firms. Strong relationships with senior individuals at top tier firms such as Battery Ventures; Benchmark Capital; Bessemer Venture Partners; Frontenac Company; Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; and Norwest Venture Capital.
- Institutional Investors / Mutual Funds / Commercial Banks. Connections to institutional money managers at Fidelity, Janus, Scudder, Vanguard, and other leading financial institutions and intermediaries.