Now, here’s the “investor achievement of the year” for 2024 from Inderes: create that previously mentioned IR playbook. Bundle it into the IR services sold to companies. Of course, it would also be nice if it were freely available… with content compiled from the numerous sources mentioned above, supplemented with etiquette guidelines for both Finland and “across the pond” (where corporate governance also originates). Then just release updated editions as needed, which would be a nice way to build loyalty to the service at the same time. I recommend publishing it digitally. 
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Corporate target setting. There is indeed variation here.
Some companies set realistic targets and may have a 75% probability of reaching or exceeding the goal. Amer Sports is an example.
Some companies engage in “aspirational” target setting, which may be intended to spur their own staff. An example is YIT and its 10–15% annual growth target. A management representative later admitted to this motive.
An investor’s task is to determine through questioning how realistic the stated financial target is. In the case of Amer Sports, the CEO’s answer/reasoning and body language while responding were convincing.
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Mika Heikkilä’s tweet has a lot of substance in a compact form. 
https://twitter.com/arvo_heikkila/status/1725866203338449354
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Here are a couple of tweets about a sort of example case. There are different examples.
https://twitter.com/investmenttraps/status/1763068443144626604?s=46
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Zijoittaja realized:
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It looks like the ‘ti’ ligature has been dropped. A typesetting error that could very well have occurred at Hesari’s end.
So, imagine the letters ‘ti’ in the place of certain gaps, and it becomes readable. Understanding the actual matter would require a “decryption key,” i.e., the terms of the mentioned bond series.
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@Mikael_Rautanen, would this be a suitable topic for discussion? The company representative does not want to disclose their views publicly, citing confidentiality obligations. This is humanly understandable. But still, he has spoken with the analyst conveniently right after the release. Doesn’t good investor communication include sharing all information simultaneously with everyone? Although analysts are professionals, there is an obvious danger of shared information being distorted or withheld.
I’m not exactly accusing anyone, but hopefully everyone responsible for investor communications understands that investors (financiers) should not be provoked in the wrong way. In my opinion, there is room for improvement here as well.
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A very good point @MoneyWalker regarding the availability of information to all investors in terms of content and simultaneity, and I promote this kind of investor communication at Nexstim as well. I want to clarify further that my discussion with Antti was specifically about the content of the press release we published, and I wanted to ensure that he understands the published content as much as possible in the same way the company intended to communicate it. He was the first external person I spoke with immediately after the news was published, and for myself and the company, it is of primary importance to quickly receive external feedback on whether the release we published has been understood correctly. Naturally, I cannot discuss any confidential information with him, just as I cannot share it publicly.
The services offered by Inderes help us as a company to have a professional who knows our company and industry well share the news from their own perspective, as well as from the broader experience and viewpoint of Inderes’ analyst team. In Nexstim’s case, @Antti_Siltanen can present views, forecasts, and scenarios that the company itself cannot publicly disclose due to confidentiality obligations or other reasons. I want to emphasize that we discuss the news in more detail with the analyst to avoid potential misunderstandings regarding the information provided by the company. I believe this is also in the interest of the wider investor community as they form their understanding of the situation based on an external analyst’s views in addition to the company’s official communications.
Certainly, and @Mikael_Rautanen, do you have anything to add to the above from Inderes’ perspective, or how we could best promote investor communications together in such situations?
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Thank you for the quick response @Mikko_Karvinen_Nexst. Publicly sharing discussions held with analysts has long been requested in investor circles. Nowadays, this could easily be done in video format, and for example, Teams can automatically generate a transcription (written text) from speech. These could be shared on Inderes’s website. Each investor could then listen to or read these and form their own understanding of the situation. This would avoid the “broken telephone” effect.
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I agree with Mikko; dialogue between the analyst and management improves investor relations and market transparency when done correctly—meaning the company’s management knows the boundaries of what they can disclose (in my experience, Finnish companies are very diligent about this). It shouldn’t be about the analyst receiving information that others don’t have. Rather, it’s about the analyst gaining a deeper and more holistic understanding of situations through dialogue, which then serves as a basis for their own estimates and scenarios. Avoiding misunderstandings is another key aspect; providing strong opinions in an analysis based on a misunderstanding can be detrimental to investors, the analyst, and the company alike.
As an analyst, it was routine for me to call management whenever I was updating an analysis based on a press release to ensure I had understood everything correctly. At the same time, it helps the company with its own communication by providing feedback on how the release was interpreted and what questions it raised. I often say that the analyst’s role is to act as a kind of interpreter between the company and investors.
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Progress ends in complacency. Inderes has done a huge service for the transparency of investor communications by publishing management interviews in video and audio form, and by bringing company representatives to this forum to discuss. This didn’t exist 15 years ago. Now it does. Can we improve?
Dialogue between an analyst and management improves investor communications and market transparency, IF it is done correctly—meaning company management knows the boundaries of what they can say AND the analyst conveys everything to the market. Would it be even better if the market could listen to, watch, and read the dialogue without filters?
An analyst adds great value to the dialogue when they know how to ask the right questions. At best, the analyst has asked investors in advance what they would like to ask. Thank you @Juha_Kinnunen and @Verneri_Pulkkinen 
Additionally, there are examples on this forum where company representatives have been allowed to be asked questions directly and they have answered them on the forum. Bittium, Incap, Gofore, Nexstim, and Witted come to mind first Ping @Karoliina_Malmi, @Antti_Pynnonen, @Otto_Pukk, @Timur_Karki, @Mikko_Karvinen_Nexst , @Harri_Sieppi . There are others as well, so thanks to all of you 
@Mikael_Rautanen, I hope you will reconsider this from an investor’s perspective. Is there a good reason to keep an analyst filtering the information flow from the company to investors? Is hearing and seeing the conversation between the analyst and the company harmful or beneficial for investors? Could hearing the conversation help investors understand situations better and avoid misunderstandings?
As I wrote at the beginning, Inderes has published management interviews. I would argue that this is why Inderes exists. Investor communications need an audience. Without an audience, investor communications are not needed. In today’s world, video and audio communication reaches an audience many times larger than a written, dozens-of-pages-long analysis. I hope Inderes will play its part in making investor communications even more open. Do not settle for the current state of investor communications. It is not fully transparent.
Those responsible for companies’ investor relations, do you have the desire to publish all analyst calls, or do you fear that someone might let something slip that shouldn’t reach the ears of the market?
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Development doesn’t stop. I agree that so-called analyst calls, where management gives a business update, for example, before a silent period, should be open to everyone and available to listen to. Just like interim report briefings, CMDs, etc.
If I understood correctly, this was about a situation where a company issues a press release that ends with “for more information, contact”. An analyst calls and verifies they have understood the facts correctly before publishing a comment. The company should give the same answers whether the caller is a financial journalist, an investor, or an analyst. It is a perfectly possible idea that when a call comes from Inderes, it starts with “we are recording and publishing this call to ensure transparency,” but I don’t know if it solves the core problem or if it would improve transparency. Something might be lost, as a large part of corporate communications would likely take the line “we told everything in the release and cannot comment further.” My own calls also essentially included general small talk about the summer and catching up
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In the forum poll, 91% support recording analyst calls and publishing them in audio format and, where possible, in text format.
https://keskustelut.inderes.fi/t/inderesin-kahvihuone-osa-9/50229/1250?u=moneywalker
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This time I want to highlight an issue for which I propose a solution. Let’s go through it with an example.
Tecnotree published its half-year report on Friday, August 9, 2024, at 9:00 AM and held a webcast at 11:00 AM. On the same day at 3:15 PM, Inderes published a management interview in video format.
Sounds good. Investors were provided with a lot of information through multiple channels and quickly at that. What was forgotten? New or missing information raises questions. Questions arise slowly. Only a few investors are ready to ask questions on a workday just a couple of hours after a press release or an interview.
In Tecnotree’s case, questions only started flooding in on Saturday, the following day. Discussion on the forum was very active already during the weekend and continued throughout the next week. A few things regarding an acquisition had remained unclear. Suspicions of misconduct gained ground. On Monday, the share price fell 6.8% while the Helsinki Stock Exchange index remained flat. On Tuesday, the share price fell 13.1%. The company had not provided any additional information. On Tuesday at 7:39 PM, Inderes published another management interview where the analyst asked a few good questions, but by no means all of those asked by investors on the forum. Management responded. All of this was in video format in English. No clarifying follow-up questions were asked, even though they would have been necessary. The share price remained at those bottom levels for the rest of the week, and that is where we are now, on Sunday, August 18, 2024.
No further information has been received from the company itself since Tuesday evening. Investors have been digging up dirt online, and we are skilled at this digging. The episode has lasted 9 days so far. The damage has already been done. Many investors have sold their shares because they do not trust the company’s management. This communication failure has further increased the lack of trust in the company’s management and board.
The failure would have been avoidable if investors had been given the opportunity to ask their questions directly to the company’s management in writing and the company had responded to the questions. It is understandable that not all questions can be answered. The discretion regarding a suitable question belongs to the investor, and management must consider which questions it can answer. The analyst is an unnecessary intermediary in such a Q&A setup.
There is no rush. It would be enough for me to know that questions will be answered within a couple of trading days. Usually, questions arise after releases, but it wouldn’t hurt if the line of communication were open every business day.
Notice that Tecnotree’s share price did not drop on Friday, the day the half-year report was published. Even on Monday, the price only fell 6.8%. The drastic drop only occurred on the second trading day after the half-year report because answers to questions had not been received.
Ping @Minna_Avellan
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I am not familiar with this case in detail, but I can certainly comment on a general level. In my experience, good investor relations require interactivity. A company should listen to and monitor the market and also be regularly available for any potential questions. You have already phrased it well in your comment: while not everything can be answered, many things can be contextualized and clarified. If an essential matter has been misunderstood or misinterpreted by the market, it cannot be addressed to individual investors on a forum, for example; instead, it must be communicated and corrected fairly via a stock exchange release.
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Did Tecnotree act incorrectly when, in an interview published by Inderes, it provided the following information that has not been disclosed in a stock exchange release:
- The name of the other party in the acquisition
- The price and payment terms of the acquisition
- The names of the IPRs (software) acquired in the transaction
- The names of the sellers in the acquisition
Is it wrong for companies to provide information in analyst interviews that has not been published in a stock exchange release?
Is it wrong for a company to share information on the Inderes forum that has not been published in a stock exchange release?
I ask you to look into that Tecnotree case: the video interviews and what has been written on the forum since August 9, 2024.
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All material information—that is, information likely to have a significant impact on the share price—must be disclosed via a stock exchange release. Companies may give interviews and answer questions on forums, but they cannot share any new material information in those contexts. If, in this case, the company has not announced an acquisition via a stock exchange release, it has deemed the information not material enough to require such a release. Many companies do, of course, use press releases to share matters that don’t mandate a stock exchange release but are still considered of interest to investors.
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Regardless of what the law says, in practice, the company itself decides what constitutes material information. In Finland, there is exceptional caution in this regard; companies generally don’t dare to share even any new information outside official communication channels or even want to comment on the company’s share price.
In other Nordic countries, it’s much more common to get an email response from the CEO along the lines of “In my opinion, the share price is at about a 50% discount, and we’ve had inquiries from funds asking if we could organize a directed issue for them, but we don’t want to do it at such a low price.”
In Finland, investor relations on forums won’t get off the ground as long as:
- IR personnel are clueless about the investor aspects of the business and the operations themselves, acting primarily as first-level investor customer support.
- Company representatives don’t dare say anything new that isn’t already in publicly available materials because they fear it might be material information.
- There is a lack of courage to comment on the share price and the company’s valuation.
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“There is a reluctance to comment on the stock price and the company’s valuation.”
Management has access to non-public information, which makes commenting on the stock price difficult.
On the other hand, Berkshire Hathaway, for example, has sometimes disclosed a price level below which share buybacks are initiated.
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Fundamentally, I find it problematic if listed companies are expected to respond to discussions on investment forums, as if everyone had a direct hotline to the company management. Some participants have invested in the company, while others have not. Most of the questions are completely irrelevant. It is also a difficult position for an analyst to act as a middleman, and they surely have better things to do. You can ask anything at the Annual General Meeting, but the interval is long. In my opinion, companies—especially smaller ones that lack the resources for comprehensive investor relations—should organize Capital Markets Days more frequently and solicit questions from investors in advance, answering them as best they can. Groups on these discussion forums could then work together to compile sets of shared questions.
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