Louis M. Thompson

What is the state of investor relations in the United States and globally? IR professionals say they are increasingly seeking investors abroad, communicating more non-financial information, using social media more often, and playing a bigger role in the C-suite and boardroom. A recent survey conducted by Bank of New York Mellon of 817 IR professionals […]

What should corporate directors do when shareholders knock on their door this proxy season and ask to discuss, face to face, how they execute their job of overseeing management? While there are no regulations that require boards to communicate directly with investors, all indications are that pressure on directors to meet with major investors is […]

When Regulation Fair Disclosure was enacted 12 years ago, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg was in high school and the first Twitter message was still six years off. Since then, the entire way that people communicate and how news is disseminated has changed, thanks to social media and other technologies. But the rules of Reg FD […]

As companies prepare their communication strategies for the 2013 proxy season, new concerns are cropping up that will have a significant influence on what companies communicate to shareholders. Among those issues is a trend that is affecting nearly all public companies: Equities are falling out of favor with institutional investors, who are instead gravitating to […]

Are investors losing interest in companies’ environmental, social, and corporate governance programs and their sustainability efforts due to ineffective communication by companies? Several recent surveys say companies need to improve how they communicate their accomplishments in these areas if they expect to get credit for what they are doing. In fact, a study by CRD […]

Few would question that the corporate world is in compliance mode—and for good reason. Memories of when companies like Enron and Global Crossing manipulated earnings, lied to investors, and inspired Congress to enact the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may now be a decade old, but they are still fresh in the minds of many executives. More recently, […]

The emerging concept of combining financial and sustainability reporting into one report, embraced now by a number of major global companies including United Technologies, Southwest Airlines, and American Electric Power, got a boost from a U.S. pioneer in the importance of reporting non-financial factors. Harvard Business School professor of management practices Robert Eccles recently advocated, […]

As various analyses emerge from the 2012 proxy season, one clear trend is taking shape: the importance for companies to engage with major shareholder groups. A recent Ernst & Young report says that outreach by issuers to their major institutional investors, particularly when it is done just prior to proxy season, reaps significant benefits in […]

Is mandatory corporate sustainability reporting in the future for public companies?  Not necessarily. If companies continue to voluntarily report on their sustainability and corporate responsibility efforts, mandatory reporting, at least in the United States, may not come to pass anytime soon.  That doesn’t mean there won’t be attempts to make it happen. For example, the […]

Last month, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon went to Congress and apologized for the firm’s massive $3 billion-plus loss in proprietary derivatives trading. “We made a mistake. I am absolutely responsible,” Dimon told the Senate Finance Committee that invited him to explain what happened. “We have let a lot of people down, and we are […]