LONDON, Sept. 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Airbus (France), Intesa Sanpaolo (Italy), Lonza Group (Switzerland), Schneider Electric (France), Nestle (Switzerland), Unilever (Netherlands), Allianz (Germany), JCDecaux (France), Repsol (Spain), Poste Italiane (Italy), ASML Holding (Netherlands) and Cellnex Telecom (Spain) clinched a clean sweep first place in the combined rankings across four categories for Best CEO, Best CFO, Best Investor Relations Professional and Best IR Company in their respective sectors in the 2020 Europe Executive Team survey, published today by Institutional Investor Research (II Research).
II surveys are the leading provider of market sentiment in the financial industry and the last eighteen months have seen significant investment in a new voting platform, as well as an improved methodology and eligibility process to deliver more accurate representative performance assessment and market sentiment analysis.
Despite the untimely start of the Europe Executive Team survey following the Covid-19 outbreak in Europe in March, we are pleased to see the positive response of both the buy and sell-side. The total number of votes this year from the investment professionals increased by 130% compared to 2019, reflecting the increased depth of feedback, while over the year 40% more individuals have been nominated.
Emerging trends identified
Germany, France, UK and Spain top of the pack: Germany was the overall winner with the highest number of Honored Companies and Most Honored Companies, closely followed by France, the UK, then Spain.
Feedback on ESG: Increased by 700% over the year, mirroring the market sentiment and the shift in importance to the social aspects of ESG.
Evaluation of CEOs and CFOs: As the pandemic put the C-suite under the spotlight, the survey highlights both ‘Leadership’ and ‘Financial Stewardship’ as being two key metrics respectively to each category.
IR performance attributes: Investment professionals were presented with 8 IR performance attributes to help assess the quality of IR, the two most important ones emerged to be ‘Consistency’ in Financial Disclosure and ‘Business and Market Knowledge’ of the IR Team.
Movers and shakers
Surprise movers this year include Schneider Electric (a Capital Goods company) with 18 published positions, a huge increase from 2019 where they had one published position. JCDecaux, a media company, achieved a top position with 16 positions – an impressive achievement being on the smaller end of the spectrum amongst the winners with a market cap of €3.5bn.
Amani Korayeim, Director for Europe and Emerging EMEA, says “Every year II’s Executive research results provide a truly independent and objective way to measure the effectiveness and reach of Investor Relations. This has been more important than ever this year. Remaining close to investors and understanding how they perceive the company and the direction it is taking amidst these uncertain times, is absolutely critical. In the absence of direct feedback from investors and/or through the broker relationship, the II Executive Team survey provides the ideal platform to deliver unfiltered and unprompted feedback on corporates and their executives from their stakeholders. With the pandemic putting executives in the hot seat, our survey shows that both good leadership and financial stewardship have been regarded as imperative in delivering the necessary reassurance to the market players. Not only did investment professionals scrutinise executives more closely they also placed more emphasis on the measures taken to safeguard and support employees and the wider stakeholder community, driving the emergence of the ‘S’ when meeting their ESG goals.
The 1,029 companies nominated across 31 sectors this year were rated on several core areas, including Financial Disclosure, Services & Communication, Quality of Investor Event (Day) and Quality of ESG materiality reporting.
For the full list of published winners, please visit https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/research/10434/The-All-Europe-Executive-Team.
Marketing license
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Benchmark Data and IR Perception Analysis
To request further information on how you can use survey data to market your firm internally or externally, or deeper analysis of survey data, please contact amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com.
About Institutional Investor Research
For 52 years Institutional Investor has consistently distinguished itself among the world’s foremost media companies with groundbreaking journalism and incisive writing that provides essential intelligence for a global audience. In addition, Institutional Investor offers highly-respected proprietary benchmark research and rankings; Institutional Investor Research provides independent sell-side and corporate performance research and rankings and aims to be the first-choice and independent validation source of qualitative market intelligence for all three sides of the investment community. Institutional Investor Research has a global presence, spanning Europe, All-Asia, the US and Latin America.