Building trust through original writing

Insights from Ryan Floyd from Barca Capital

I enjoyed listening to Ryan talk about investor relations. A few interesting perspectives from this conversation that could be worthwhile for us to consider:

1/ Building trust through original writing. Management teams writing candidly and "in their own voice" (what is going well, what the challenges are, where the business is headed) builds trust, which becomes a very valuable currency during moments of crisis that, over a long enough time span, surely come.

2/ Creating good, data-rich presentations (referencing statistician Edward Tufte’s “data-to-ink ratio”), with as much historical context as is available and possible. For instance, Coca-Cola’s financial statements in some databases go back to around 1920!!

3/ Providing another layer of company insight or activities that go beyond the quarterly cycle of press releases and earnings calls. This also reminded me of what another investor once said: “we are long-term students of the companies we invest in, and IR teams, through their activities, set the curriculum for us.” It seems that investors appreciate IR teams more as educators rather than sellers.