.jpg)
Since the beginning of 2013, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has joined hands with mainstream media to carry out the series activities of “I’m a shareholder: small and medium-sized investors’ visits to listed companies”, in order to further guide and standardize the investor relation management of listed companies, protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors, especially small and medium-sized investors, foster investors’ awareness of being shareholders, improve their initiative in exercising shareholders’ rights, and advocate the concepts of rational investment and value investing. Online voting, registration, and question solicitation were organized in the activities for individual investors. The activities attempted to establish and perfect the face-to-face communication mechanism between investors and such executives as the board chairmen and general managers of listed companies, with an aim of listening to investors and reflecting their wills, and ensuring the implementation of the concept of serving small and medium-sized investors.
Since its launching on March 13, the “I’m a shareholder” activities have extended to major places of China and received the enthusiastic participation and positive comments from all market participants, such as small and medium-sized investors, listed companies, member companies, and media. Till the end of November, the activities have covered 18 listed companies including Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Kunming Pharmaceutical Corporation, China Minsheng Banking Corporation Ltd., Kweichow Moutai Co., Ltd., Beijing Tong Ren Tang Co., Ltd., Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-earth (Group) Hi-tech Co., Ltd., Henan Rebecca Hair Products Co., Ltd., Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd., Haitong Securities Co., Ltd., Wanhua Chemical Group Co., Ltd., Yinzuo Group Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Hisense Electric Co., Ltd., SANY Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co., Ltd., Beijing Capital Co., Ltd., China Railway Tielong Container Logistics Co., Ltd., and Shanghai International Port (Group) Co., Ltd. Altogether 1.68 million pieces of real-name votes have been received from investors, and nearly 1,000 investors and media persons have participated in on-site investigations on listed companies. According to the satisfaction survey after the activities, the satisfaction degrees of listed companies and media, small and medium-sized investors, online anonymous investors, and member units have exceeded 95%, 98%, 90%, 95%, respectively.
1. Highlighting the connotation of the activities and manifesting shareholders’ rights
In order to better popularize the law knowledge of the securities market and promote investors to understand their rights as shareholders, the SSE has specially designed and made the official website, the logo, the brochure, the poster, the T-shirt, and the handbag for the activities and conducted an in-depth excavation of the activities’ cultural connotation of protecting investors’ rights and interests. Just as the logo presents, a palm means that shareholders lift their hands to actively exercise rights; the provisions about shareholders’ rights in the “Securities Law” and the “Company Law” printed on the logo’s pedestal showed that shareholders’ rights are endowed by laws, and we shall abide by laws; the slight larger size of the palm than the book shows that “laws alone are not enough”, and only the exercising of rights by laws can make law provisions root; and the crystal logo symbolizes that the SSE and all market participants will jointly pursue the promptness and transparency of information disclosure, and safeguard the open, fair, and just market order.
Thanks to the concerted efforts of investors and member units, the theme song with the same name of the activities has also been released. The song has tactfully combined shareholders’ rights and the activities, presented a shareholder image with knowledge, risk cognitive ability, risk tolerance, and rationality, and deepened the spiritual connotation of the activities. “Love reading research reports, and love researching and tracking more; on entering listed companies, embrace face-to-face communication; to exercise shareholders’ rights, we are acting now.” the lyric just tells the wishes of small and medium-sized shareholders.
2. Conducting general election to listening to the wishes of small and medium-sized investors
The online voting, registration, and question solicitation of the “I’m a shareholder” activities have been carried out for individual investors. It is the first practice in the industry that generates the listed companies to be investigated and visited through small and medium-sized investors’ real-name voting, which has totally proceeded from investors and aimed at listening to the opinions of investors and reflecting their will.
With the promotion and cooperation of securities companies, nearly 1.7 million votes have been received in the five-season online general elections of this year, with the number of votes in each season of 32,276, 105,667, 99,477, 447,008, and 991,197 respectively. The number of votes in the fifth season is larger than the total of the first four seasons, which has reflected the increasingly higher enthusiasm of investors in participating in voting. Till the end of November, the click rate of the activities’ homepage has reached 40.13 million.
3. Expanding the activities’ influence through widespread media publicity
The “I’m a shareholder” activities have attracted wide attention of the media since its launching. Relevant media have reflected the information of every visit and investigation, the interesting sidelights, the excellent remarks, the interviews, and the Q&A on hot spots to the investors timely and dynamically. The all-round, multi-dimensional, and innovative reports on the “I’m a shareholder” activities through various media have expanded the publicity of investor protection.
For example, the over ten terms of the special program “I’m a shareholder” launched by the CCTV Financial Channel have really proceeded from the investors and earnestly implemented the aim of the educational activities on the Party’s mass line; the five platforms of the China Business Network have followed the latest news of the activities “I’m a shareholder” and made in-depth comments; the three major securities newspapers (the China Securities Journal, the Shanghai Securities News, and the Securities Times) and the Economic Information Daily of the Xinhua News Agency have either set up a special column or made full-page report; sina.com, qq.com, and people.com.cn have launched the column “SSE Release” and xueqiu.com has carried out a webcast of pictures and messages; and the four major platforms of the SSE’s official micro-blog have released 472 pieces of micro-blogs during the 18 sessions of the “I’m a shareholder” activities. With regard to the platform of qq.com, the micro-blogs have been viewed for over 2 million times, that is, nearly 20,000 times for each micro-blog on average. It is learnt from the feedbacks of all market participants that the reports related to the “I’m a shareholder” activities have gained widespread popularity by the investors and can help investors better know about their rights and interests.
4. Focusing on actual effects to promote the investor relation management of listed companies
These series activities aim at optimizing investor relation management and protecting shareholders’ rights and interests, and whether actual effects can be achieved is the important indicator of the success of these activities. During the visits to the 18 listed companies, the board chairmen, general managers, and other executives of these listed companies have paid high attention to and well organized the activities and carefully answered the questions raised by every shareholder. Zhu Yuchen, President of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, expressed the goal of “Doing a good job for the 400,000 shareholders”; China Minsheng Banking Corporation Ltd. put up the slogan “Our shareholders, welcome home!” at the site of the activity; Zheng Youquan, Board Chairman of Rebecca Hair Products Co., Ltd., accompanied the investors all the way to visit the wig production line; Kou Guangwu, Vice General Manager and Secretary to Directorate of Wanhua Chemical Group, introduced the company’s exhibition hall and explained the industry park planning despite the high temperature of over 40℃; Tielong Container Logistics led all investors to take the high-speed rail and visit the branch line of the Shaba Railway and the facilities of the North Station of the Bayuquan Area. All these have shown the listed companies’ efforts on optimizing the investor relation management and promoting the protection of investors’ rights and interests.
The 18 listed companies being visited and investigated have all shown 100% degree of recognition for the viewpoint that the activities above can facilitate the communication between small and medium-sized investors and listed companies, promote listed companies to pay more attention to the investor relation management, and call out small and medium-sized investors’ awareness of being shareholders, and they all hoped that the “I’m a shareholder” activities would come again. Besides, some listed companies that have not been visited wished that the “I’m a shareholder” activities can take the investors to visit their companies, and test and enhance the level of their investor relation management. Meanwhile, the SSE has summarized some good practices in investor relation management according to the visits to the 18 listed companies, and it is now compiling the Collected Case Studies of Listed Companies’ Investor Relation Management in 2013 for the study and reference of all market participants, in a bid to extend the actual effects and the value of the series activities “I’m a shareholder”.
