The Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) will launch a new online tool to help listed companies understand how to further improve upon their investor relations (IR) excellence score.
The IR excellence programme will feature a new “most improved company” investor relations award for the first time this year, a bourse spokesman confirmed.
Under the rating and assessment system used in the IR excellence programme, all Qatari listed companies are automatically entered into the assessment programme.
A public voting system and a detailed website ranking of all companies will be conducted during the third quarter of this year, the spokesman said, adding all members of the investment community would be eligible to vote for the best companies.
Iridium, on behalf of the QSE, will manage the distribution of e-mails and questionnaires to a database of over 2,000 regional and international investor and broker contacts that are active in the Qatari market.
The online IR tool enables companies to see how their website ranking last year was broken down into technology, content and service, and what they can do in order to improve their score.
All companies received access to this tool, creating an equal opportunity for everyone to achieve a higher result. This will allow the listed companies to highlight areas for improvement and what they can do to increase their IR excellence score when their website is ranked again later this year, he said.
“Our IR excellence programme is returning better and stronger this year, with a new category and a new software tool. These new features will help encourage Qatar’s listed companies to further improve their investor relations programmes, supporting our mandate to continually strengthen Qatar’s position among global emerging markets,” QSE chief executive Rashid bin Ali al-Mansoori said.
Oliver Schutzmann, chief executive of Iridium, said this year’s innovations are all about assisting companies to improve their IR, and rewarding them for doing so.
“High-quality IR are at the heart of market accessibility and support the ongoing development of successful capital markets, and QSE’s initiatives are leading the region in working towards this ambition,” he said.
Abdul Aziz al-Emadi, director of the Listing Department at the QSE, said the new features of the programme will encourage firms to improve on last year’s scores by improving the technology, content and service provided by their IR websites.
The QSE had launched the IR excellence programme in 2015 in cooperation with Iridium in an effort to adhere to international best practices in disclosure, transparency and IR.
The programme was designed to recognise listed companies and individuals who display best practice in IR. Last year’s winners were: Best Qatari company overall for excellence in IR was QNB; best large-cap company: QNB; best mid cap: Doha Bank; best small cap: Mazaya Real Estate; best chief financial officer: Ramzi Mari of QNB; best IR officer: Andreas Goldau of Ooredoo; best IR website: Ooredoo, al khaliji and Vodafone Qatar.