Legislation and regulation in most African capital markets are not as strict as those in other markets and therefore corporate liability not as high. Progressive investor relations practices are therefore not as prevalent. However, according to AIC, the rapidly growing Internet access across the continent and the fact that many investors in African equities are a global community, the potential to build a relationship and communications with investors online is enormous. AIC’s Online IR Awards reward the pioneers in this field.
Online investor relations practices comprise strategic management responsibilities that integrate finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to enable the most effective secure two-way communication between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies, which ultimately contributes to a company’s securities achieving fair valuation.
| Category | : | Best Online IR Programme 2009 |
| Winner | : | African Sun Limited |
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| Comment | : | African Sun received our top prize for its balanced online IR programme implemented over the past year. African Sun’s www.africansuninvestor.com provided equal focus on investors as www.africansunhotels.co.za provided on customers. Their transparent investment thesis, comprehensive website data, a new CEO blog and strong business growth all contributed toward positive ratings. African Sun received excellent ratings for the timing and nature of feedback provided to the queries submitted online. The key aspect, however, that enabled African Sun to clinch the award was the commercial value of the feedback they received through www.africansuninvestor.com. A pity that their share price has yet to respond. |
| Category | : | Best Performance 2009 |
| Winner | : | Econet Wireless Zimbabwe |
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| Comment | : | Econet Wireless has staged an unbelievable operational comeback less than a year since Zimbabwe’s hyper-hyper inflation forced the economy to re-start from ground zero through dollarisation. Throughout this period, Econet’s management could see the other side of the crisis and invested heavily in ensuring that when the US dollar replaced the local currency, they were in a strategic position to take advantage of it. This happened and continues to happen and the share price responded accordingly, recording the highest gain compared with other AIC clients for the period under review. |
| Category | : | Best Investor outreach 2009 |
| Winner | : | Copperbelt Energy Corporation plc. |
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| Comment | : | CEC’s website analytics speaks for themselves: Amongst AIC’s clients, the company enjoyed the highest number of page views, the highest number of unique visitors, and highest number of visits from over 100 countries. Now that CEC has settled into its online IR programme following its launch in February 2009, tangible commercial benefits are starting to accrue through feedback to their website. CEC is a unique infrastructural public investment opportunity, which contributes to it being the radar screens of investors around the world. |
| Category | : | Best CEO blog 2009 |
| Winner | : | Geoff Goss of Celsys Limited |
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| Comment | : | Geoff Goss has habitually provided an excellent blog to complement Celsys’ investor relations website on www.celsys.co.zw. His jovial views into the pain suffered by Zimbabwe managements over the past few years have been extraordinarily insightful. Yes, the CEO blog doesn’t exactly have millions of visitors every day, but the message we get from Geoff – and it’s a message that we give to all our clients is that every effort should be taken to inform shareholders through many different media. It only takes one investor to change the fortunes of a company and so the effort is worth it. |
| Category | : | Best IPO Online Investor Relations 2009 |
| Winner | : | Telekom Networks Malawi Limited |
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| Comment | : | We only had one participant in this category, but there are some significantly unique aspects of this transaction that you will not have seen in any other African IPO. Firstly, regulatory approval was obtained to distribute the prospectus online with an application form. Secondly, the majority of TNM’s investment community was identified in InvestorPass at IPO stage. This secure two way communications platform has been key in merging corporate strategy (i.e. brand enhancement) with investor communications. TNM’s outreach measured by the number of countries visiting www.tnminvestor.com was AIC’s highest at 112. |
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AIC’s inaugural annual awards recognises the performance of AIC’s online investor relations clients during the previous calendar year. |
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Based on best investor relations practices, modified for African markets, African Is Cool (“AIC) uses corporate investor relations websites to create and grow an online investment community with which companies communicate, and from which they can receive feedback. The bigger the online community, the lower the costs of communication, the greater a company’s influence and the more efficient their communication.
Website feedback brings business deals, lowers the cost of doing business and gives listed companies the ability to modify corporate strategy. Because AIC’s services are unique they do not conflict with companies’ current financial reporting, IT, PR or marketing initiatives. In contrast, AIC services complement them.
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