Congratulations to all of the IR Magazine Canada Awards winners! The awards were held last Thursday. We were pleased to present the Lifetime Achievement award to Ron Blunn’s two sons. It was a privledge to present such a special award.

Best investor relations by a TSX Venture Exchange company
Shift Networks Inc

Best investor relations for an IPO
Tim Hortons

Best investor relations web site – small to large cap
ATI Technologies Inc

Best use of conferencing – small to large cap
Canadian Tire Corporation Limited
Gildan Activewear Inc

Best investment community meetings – small to large cap
ATI Technologies Inc

Best senior management communications – small to mid-cap
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund

Best senior management communications – large cap
Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited

Best use of technology
RBC

Best annual report
PotashCorp

Best communications with the retail market
TELUS Corporation

Best disclosure policy
Inmet Mining Corporation
TD Bank Financial Group

Lifetime achievement in investor relations
Ron Blunn

Best M&A investor relations
Inco Limited

Best corporate governance
RBC

Best investor relations in the US market
CN

Most improved investor relations
Angiotech

Best investor relations officer – small to mid-cap
Isabelle Adjahi – Axcan Pharma Inc
Pat Marshall – Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund

Best investor relations officer – large cap
Janet Craig – Angiotech

Best investor relations officer – mega-cap
Bruce Mann – Rogers Communications

Best investor relations by a CEO
Hunter Harrison – CN

The CIRI grand prix for best overall investor relations – small cap
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund

The CIRI grand prix for best overall investor relations – mid-cap
Axcan Pharma Inc

The CIRI grand prix for best overall investor relations – large cap
Canadian Tire Corporation Limited

The CIRI grand prix for best overall investor relations – mega-cap
CN

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

Here are the final categories for the IR Magazine Canada Awards. The awards are tomorrow night and we look forward to seeing many of you there. Congratulations again to all the companies and people nominated. Job well done!

Best disclosure policy
CN
Inmet Mining Corporation
TD Bank Financial Group

Most improved investor relations
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals
Canadian Pacific Railway
Nexen

Best M&A investor relations
ATI Technologies
Falconbridge 06
Inco

Best investor relations for an IPO*
Canada Cartage Diversified Income Fund
Teranet Income Fund
Tim Hortons
* New listings on TSX

Best investor relations by a TSX Venture Exchange company
Active Control Technology
Shift Networks
Sterling Resources
Titanium Corporation

Best investor relations in the US market
Canadian Natural Resources
CN
Nova Chemicals
Research in Motion

Best retail investor communications
RBC Financial Group
Rogers Communications
TD Bank Financial Group
Telus

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

Here are the IR Magazine Canada Awards nominees for Best Investor Relations Web Site, Best Use of Conferencing and Best Corporate Goverance. Congratulations and we’ll see you on Thursday!

Best investor relations web site
Under $10 bn market cap
ATI Technologies
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund
Magna International

Best use of conferencing
Under $10 bn market cap
Canadian Tire
Gildan Activewear
Meridian Gold

Best corporate governance
Barrick Gold
RBC Financial Group
Scotiabank
TD Bank Financial Group

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

Here are the IR Magazine Canada Awards nominees for Best Annual Report, Best Investment Community Meeting and The Best Use of Technology. Congratulations to these great companies!

Best Annual Report
CN
PotashCorp
Telus

Best Investment Community Meetings
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals
ATI Technologies
Cognos

Best Use of Technology
ATI Technologies
EnCana
RBC Financial Group

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

Here are the IR Magazine Canada Awards nominees for Best Investor Relations by a CEO and the Best Senior Management Communications. Congratulations to these impressive leaders.

Best Investor Relations by a CEO 

CN – Hunter Harrison
Shoppers Drug Mart – Glenn Murphy
Suncor Energy – Rick George
TD Bank Financial Group – Edmund Clark

Best Senior Management Communications

$1bn to $10 bn market cap
Agnico-Eagle Mines
Canadian Pacific Railway
Meridian Gold

Under $1bn market cap
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund
FNX Mining Company
Savanna Energy Services Corporation

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

Here are the IR Magazine Canada Awards nominees for Best Investor Relations Officer 2006. Managing IR in today’s enviroment is a challenging endeavor. Our hat goes off to everyone below for a job well done in 2006.

Over $10 bn market cap
CN – Bob Noorigian 
Inco – Sandra Scott
Rogers Communications – Bruce Mann 
Suncor Energy – John Rogers

$1 bn to $10 bn market cap 
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals – Janet Craig
Magna International – Louis Tonelli 
Shoppers Drug Mart – John Caplice
TransAlta Corporation – Jennifer Pierce & Mardell van Nieuvenhuyse 

Under $1 bn market cap
Axcan Pharma – Isabelle Adjahi 
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund – Pat Marshall
Draxis Health – Jerry Ormiston 
Harris Steel Group – Flora Wood

Coming next week: Best investor relations by a CEO

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

We’re pleased to be a sponsor of the upcoming IR Magazine Canada Awards on February 8th.  Here is the short list of nominees for award The CIRI Grand Prix for Overall Best Investor Relations.

Congratulations to all of the nominees!.

Over $10 bn market cap
Barrick Gold
CN
Manulife Financial
Telus

$1 bn to $10 bn market cap
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals
Canadian Tire
Cognos
Shoppers Drug Mart

$500 mn to $1 bn market cap
Aeroplan Income Fund
Axcan Pharma
Cascades
FNX Mining Company

Under $500 mn market cap
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund
Dalsa Corporation
Gennum Corporation
 

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, IR Magazine, IR Magazine Awards, Q4 Web Systems

Following the lead of the SEC’s voluntary XBRL program success last year, the CSA has introduced a similar XBRL voluntary filing program effective May 2007. 

Reporting issuers participating in the voluntary program will file financial statements in XBRL format on SEDAR. Under the current continuous disclosure requirements, these issuers must also continue filing their official financial statements in PDF format on SEDAR. The CSA will make the XBRL financial statements available to the public through the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.

I think it’s great that Canadian regulators (and SEDAR) are putting this program in place. With continued worldwide support for xbrl and electronic disclosure it’s important for Canada to continue to evolve and remain competitive. This effort has been put in place as a follow up to CSA’s XBRL survey from June 29 to September 30, 2006. They received 150 responses from various stakeholders, including accountants, investors and analysts.

If you don’t know about XBRL you can learn more here:
www.xbrl.org
www.xbrl.ca
www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl.htm
 
And for more details on the program check the OSC posting or BCSC web sites.

Technorati Tags: Securities Regulation, XBRL, Investor Relations, OSC, BCSC, CSA, Corporate Reporting, Electronic Disclosure, e-disclosure

I just returned from attending the joint CIRI and Toronto CFA Society panel discussion, ‘Guidance on Guidance’ held at the Ontario Club in the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Panelists came from a variety of backgrounds:Edel Ebbs, VP Investor Relations at R.I.M.; Donald Lewtas, VP Finance at Onex; Duncan Stewart, technology analyst and columnist with the National Post; and Brad Willock, Senior Portfolio Manager, RBC Asset Management.

Considering all comments, my take away from the event was this this - in order for guidance to be helpful it must be accurate, relevant and conservative. If you can’t meet these standards, you shouldn’t be providing guidance. This may sound blindingly obvious, but numerous companies do not seem to use these standards as a guidepost.

In addition, retail investors don’t have the same tools that analysts have and so need more information. And as Duncan Stewart pointed out, shareholders own the majority of the company and so should have the same information and context that management and executives have. 

According to Brad Willock, most companies do not give the right information. Two examples of “how to do it right” were United Technologies and General Dynamics.

Duncan Stewart provided a great analogy that any parent can relate to, “If you’re going on a road trip with small kids and you start the day without telling them where you’re going, how long it will take and what’s going to happen on the way - you’re not going to have a very pleasant trip!”

Investors are taking a road trip with you and your company, and if they don’t have the information they need, you might hear requests to “Stop the car! I wanna get out!”

Technorati Tags: Guidance, Investor Relations, IR, IR Best Practices, CIRI 

As you may have heard the Securities and Exchange Commission has been talking about whether or not blogs and websites could be used for disclosure.

In general I think this is inevitably where things are headed, however I don’t think that it will ever be simply blogs or web sites on their own. They will have to be used in conjunction with press releases.

The reason is that although RSS makes it easy to track a blog or web site. If you’re not subscribed to it, you never see it and if you don’t visit the web site then there is no way to be aware of any disclosure happening at that company. Perhaps this would work for well known and well followed companies, but for the majority they would simply exist out there in no mans land.

I agree with Dominic at IR Daily from back in Oct when he suggested that the press release could be used in conjunction with web sites to notify of changes coming. Imagine a quarterly release being used to point people to the corporate web site. Seems like it makes perfect sense.

What certainly seems clear is that disclosure is about the Internet and it’s only a matter of time for all disclosure to be electronic disclosure. 

Technorati Tags: SEC, Compliance, Christopher Cox, Sarbanes Oxley, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, SOX, Reg FD, Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor Relations