“During a time when risks can arise from all angles, it is critical to keep the investment community informed through professional investor relations activities – both locally and internationally. The QSE IR excellence programme has been created to recognise the best organisations and leaders in Qatar who excel at creating a clear picture about their listed company’s strategic, financial and operational developments, and adhere to the highest standards of transparency and disclosure,” QSE chief executive Rashid bin Ali al-Mansoori said.
A public voting system and a thorough IR website ranking of all listed companies will be conducted from mid-November to end-December 2018. Both retail and professional members of the investment community will be eligible to vote for the best investor relations efforts by the companies.
Iridium Investor Relations, an independent IR advisory specialist, will manage the distribution of e-mails and questionnaires to a database of over 2,000 regional and international investors on behalf of the QSE. The firm will also be responsible for ranking the company’s websites.
Since the programme launch in 2015, the IR excellence programme methodology has been made publicly available to the market every year in advance of the review process. To ensure the credibility of the award, the IR excellence programme cannot be sponsored. “During the first three years of the IR excellence programme, the QSE focused on creating awareness for the importance of the investor relations function. As a result, a growing number of companies have made improvements to their investor relations efforts,” said Abdul Aziz al-Emadi, Director of Listing Department at the QSE.
The IR excellence programme has been benchmarked globally against best practices to ensure a fair, credible and transparent methodology. The full methodology and all rating criteria will be made available to the public in advance. This enables all companies to review categories and selection criteria, and gives them some advance notice to adjust their Investor Relations efforts, especially with regards to the information services they provide through their IR websites.
