The IR magazine-commissioned Investor Perception Study, US 2005 reveals that some 38 percent of American sell-side analysts say they have been shut out by a company after a downgrade. Europeans report an even higher rate of discrimination at 42 percent. One individual calls this ‘standard practice’ by all the companies he covers.

An August memo from Robert Colby, deputy director of the [SEC’s] division
of market regulation, discloses some of the more common ways companies punish analysts: not allowing them to ask questions on conference calls, limiting
access to senior management, not inviting them to participate in non-deal
roadshows, threatening to withdraw business from other areas of the analysts’
firm, ‘intimidation and humiliation’ on conference calls or in the media,
and threatening legal action.

Yet IROs openly talk about several methods of expressing their displeasure – or, as one puts it, ‘behavioral therapy for analysts’: reshuffling message slips, complaining to immediate superiors (or higher up), and indirect retaliation. This latter strategy is expressed by the adage, ‘It’s not what you do to an analyst – it’s what you do on behalf of his competition.’ As one investor relations professional with 30 years’ experience puts it, ‘You can ignore someone in many different ways.’