Euro IROs like Thomson Financial — sort of

By Dominic Jones

THOMSON Financial is by far the most favored fee-based provider of investor relations services among IR directors at large-cap European companies, according to a survey by Real IR magazine and CommunicateResearch.

The Boston-based company had the most positive score with a “net favourability rating” of 38% among investor relations practitioners at 235 leading European firms, including 4 in 10 of the FTSE 100. In joint second place were CapitalBridge and Makinson Cowell with net favorability ratings of 22%.

The survey also found that the UBS corporate access team and Deutsche Bank’s corporate broking team offer the best investor relations services to companies among the major investment banks. UBS’s corporate access team had the most positive score with a net favorability rating of 61%. Other banks hitting over 50% ratings were Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.

Notice the big difference in favorability ratings for the banks versus the IR service providers. It’s like IROs are saying they don’t like any of the IR service providers, but they dislike Thomson less than the others.

I suppose that’s good news for those who might be working behind the scenes to prep Thomson Financial’s corporate services unit to be spun off or sold.

In an article in the Boston Globe a couple of weeks ago, Thomson Corp. officials refused on comment on the future of Thomson’s corporate PR business under a merger with Reuters Group. But they did a great job talking up the company’s merits, including the fact that they charge over $100,000 for some webcasts!

Insane.

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