Creating an IR presentation is one of the first impressions that analysts and portfolio managers will have of a company. We know that it can be challenging to create a presentation that clearly articulates a company’s investment proposition.
Presentations that contain excessive detail don’t allow investors to digest all of its content and see the investment opportunity; there is no clear narrative of the equity story. While investors always appreciate the information, too much of it can cloud the investment picture, which at its core is the strategy to grow a business over the long term.
Excessive images, graphics, and animation effects can be distracting. While these are helpful to illustrate certain aspects of your company’s investment thesis – such as a core technology – too many can overwhelm the key investment messages. You want investors and analysts to be listening to management, hearing the narrative that explains how the company will drive shareholder value. That’s how you ultimately win investors’ trust and confidence and how you attract their capital. Remember, it is management who sets the strategy, leads its implementation, and allocates shareholders’ capital.
Information that an IR Presentation Should Contain
Investors want to know how the company will drive revenue, earnings, and cash flow over the mid-to long term. They want to understand how management is going to invest their capital and what the expected return on this investment is likely to be.
While the information content will vary from one company’s presentation to another’s, what needs to be conveyed to investors is basically the same, almost universal: to comprehend the investment opportunity, investors need to understand the opportunities that exist in a company’s markets, how the company is positioned within these markets and the strategy and assets that are being deployed to exploit those opportunities. With regards to the markets in which a company sells its products and services, presenting third-party data is typically more effective for making an investment case. Also, trends are most relevant to investors, as they are concerned with the future with forecasting it.
As such, an investor presentation should not focus on past results, generally. Consider limiting such information to key financial and operating measures, which help establish management’s track record.
Delivering the Investor Presentation
The professional who delivers the presentation ultimately determines its effectiveness. A company can have a perfect investor presentation and a compelling investment case, but if the presenter doesn’t convey credibility and the right measure of enthusiasm for the company and its growth prospects, the opportunity to win investors’ capital will likely be lost. Credibility and a passion for the business either exist or don’t – neither can be taught, obviously. But for some executives, presenting doesn’t come naturally. For them, presentation training is a must. Also, rehearsing a presentation is always recommended, whether an executive is a skilled presenter or not.
A great deal of work often goes into getting a company in front of potential investors, so you need to make the most of the opportunity and make the strongest first impression possible. A poor first impression, by the way, can be long-lasting and difficult to correct.
Final Thoughts
As with other forms of investor communications, the presentation should set investor expectations appropriately. In terms of the content, investors do appreciate over-transparency and an adequate amount of information provided. The key however is to make sure that the access to the information is easy and the navigation between the data is intuitive.
Doing so will help preserve the credibility of management and the company over the long term. That means being candid about the challenges that the company faces, and not just presenting its opportunities.
Investor presentation decks are the most viewed online document by investors, analysts, credit rating agencies, and all other stakeholders. At Sager IR, we help our clients assess the importance of such a report and together develop and transform comprehensive and high-quality information into an investor presentation that aligns business strategy and organizational capabilities ensuring authentic communication to investors and analysts.