Within the framework of the SCA's efforts to enhance investment awareness and provide the necessary information to investors in a way that contributes to making sound investment decisions, the SCA organized a forum under the patronage of His Excellency Engineer Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy and Chairman of the Board of Directors, under the title "the importance of the role of Investor Relations Department activity of listed companies in the activation of innovative and effective communication channels with investors".
His Excellency D. Obaid Al Zaabi, CEO of the SCA, delivered the opening speech, in the presence of the Chairman and members of the Board of Directors of the Middle East Investor Relations Association, representatives of the largest companies (regional and global) providing financial analysis services, and approximately 140 people representing the listed companies and financial consulting and analysis companies licensed in the financial markets of the State.
On the sidelines of the forum events, the SCA signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Investor Relations Association, and an exhibition was held with the participation of the four major regional and international companies that have platforms and systems specialized in analysing data and extracting financial indicators. These companies are Bloomberg, Tomson Reuters, Arqam and DirectFN. The purpose to introduce the audience how to use these platforms to provide financial data and statistics to enrich the websites of the listed companies with indicators and data that contribute to enhance the ability of investors and dealers to make a sound investment decision.
Functions entrusted to Investor Relations Managers
In the opening speech of the forum, D. Obaid Saif Al Zaabi addressed roles and functions entrusted to Investor Relations managers in public joint stock companies, and highlighted the great importance of this forum in enhancing the role of Investors Relations officers in companies. He also stressed the importance of the participants being able to benefit from the expertise of speakers, exchange information and knowledge and provide the necessary support to investors. He also reviewed a number of SCA initiatives, including the initiative of conversion of brokerage firms to integrated financial services companies, and the new systems that are presented on its website to seek the opinion of industry leaders, and to identify the observations of experts, dealers and interested persons. and foremost of these systems is the Crypto Assets system.
In the opening speech of the forum, Dr/ Obaid Al-Zaabi pointed out that: " Investors relations departments in public joint stock companies play a significant role in communicating with investment community such as shareholders and investors (individuals and corporations), identifying the shareholders, targeting investors and dealing with their inquiries, reporting reactions and strategic information to the company's senior management in order to reach a clear and accurate perception on the market position, in addition to providing analyses of market and company's competitive position.
He added, "This event is important in light of the significant transformation in Investor Relations functions and tasks in terms of relying on interactive data and managing the company's files and services through data flow applications and electronic briefing systems that provide information to the audience on reports and research related to the performance analysis of a company, which is issued in most cases by institutions and local specialists in financial analysis of companies. Reports are prepared to follow up the performance of the Department and are submitted to the senior management to take its respective decisions related.
Forum Objectives
The SCA’s CEO also clarified the main objectives of organizing this forum as follows:
1. Activate the Investor Relations page on the websites of the listed companies in a way that helps educate investors about the shares of these companies and keep them informed of the company's updates.
This is in accordance with the provisions of Article (35) of the Resolution of the SCA Chairman of the Board of Directors of the No. (7/R.M) of 2016 on the standards of institutional discipline and governance of public joint stock companies.
2. Enrich the Investor Relations page on the websites of listed companies with statistics and financial indicators that contribute to support investors in making investment decisions, and enhance the degree of knowledge of stakeholders and their level of understanding of the data related to the company's performance.
3- Providing an opportunity for the financial analysis departments of the listed companies as well as the financial consulting and financial analysis companies to be acquainted with the latest financial applications and ways of using them in their financial analysis operations.
4. Addressing an area of weakness in the communication mechanism between the listed company and shareholders by activating the role of Investors Relations officials and improving the level of summary reports submitted by the company, which invalidates the role of rumors promoters in the markets resulting from some companies’ slowness in response and clarification.
SCA Standards for Investor Relations Page
During the first session of the forum, Mr. Ahmed Al Naqbi, Financial Analyst, Corporate Governance and Auditors at the SCA, reviewed the importance and role of investor relations officials in listed companies as a channel of communication with investors. In the second session, he reviewed the requirements of the Investor Relations page on the website of the listed companies and the role of the site in supporting the investment decision, in addition to the requirements and criteria that must be met in the Investor Relations page of the listed company website according to the SCA's legislations and decisions in this regard.
In the second part, an excellent model for an Investor Relations page that met and largely applied the standards set by the SCA, was displayed as a practical model of what the Investor Relations page should look like. The second part was presented by Ms. Souad Al Serkal, Vice President of Strategic Communications at Tabreed, who had previously won the “Best Investor Relations Page” award in the competition launched by the SCA during the first half of this year.
The third session showed the importance of listing in the Investor Relations pages and the website of the listed company to financial statistics and indicators that can contribute to provide support to investors when making the investment decision. It showed also the importance of access to modern systems and applications related to data analysis and the preparation of statistics and indicators for financial analysts in financial analysis departments of listed companies as well financial analysts at financial consulting and financial analysis companies.
The companies providing financial analysis services and participants in the forum participated in the presentation of the third session. The Bloomberg participation was presented by Mr. David Masis, the Thomson Reuters Refinitiv participation was presented by Mr. Mohamed Moussa, the Arqam participation was presented by Mr. Mustafa Al Saleh, and DirectFN participation was presented by Mr. Abdou Khoury.
Concluding remarks
The last session of the forum was dedicated to respond to the questions of dealers and representatives of listed and licensed companies participating in the event. Dr/ Obaid Al Zaabi, CEO, listened to inquiries and suggestions for the attendance. Regarding the inquiry about the method of presenting the financial statements of companies to facilitate the way investors read them, Dr/ Obaid explained that all listed companies comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL); that all companies have a minimum requirement in accordance with the regulations of the SCA, governance controls regulation and other regulatory legislation; and that the decision to develop the way of presenting the data depends on the company and how much the information you wishes to present to the public.
In response to a proposal on simplifying the presentation of financial statements so that they are presented uniformly for each sector of the listed companies, as well as shortening the quarterly disclosure period of financial statements to be less than 45 days, Dr/ Obaid Al Zaabi said that the SCA has made standard comparisons and a study of the best international standards in this regard, and found that this period is applied in many financial markets around the world, however, the SCA does not spare no effort in conducting further studies and research on this subject to apply global best practices, and if studies show that the period can be reduced along with providing the data with the required accuracy and in accordance with the set criteria and requirements, without prejudice to the rights of investors to obtain the right data, the SCA will not mind to adopt this trend.