Investor Relations : Viewed from a marketing perspective

Introduction: When the American investment bank Morgan Stanley suddenly decide to increase their target stock price of the Ericsson stock by 100 percent, it became the point of origin for our interest in investor relations. In this particular case the increase of target stock price was announced right after new Morgan Stanley analysts started covering the stock. Why this tremendous increase in target stock price, we will probably never know. Perhaps the new analysts perceived the information disclosed from Ericsson’s investor re-lations function different from the prior analyst, and ended up in adjusting the target stock price. Problem: Stock prices today are very dependent on the market expectations of future company growth. Market actors estimate the potential growth by analysing information disclosed by the company. It has therefore become increasingly important for companies to manage their investor relations with a strategic marketing perspective to be able to meet the internal and external needs. Companies must also present themselves to investors in a way that appeals both on a rational and an emotional level. Once new investors are attracted and old ones are kept, companies must constantly communicate about their performance to uphold investors trust and there by creating or maintain long-term relationships. Purpose: The purpose is to explore if and how a marketing perspective is applicable when managing investor relations in traded companies. Method: This study has been conducted with qualitative research method. Collection of empirical data has been done through six semi-structured interviews with directors and managers whom all work with investor relations for their respective company. The six par-ticipating companies are all traded on the Stockholm stock exchange. The collected data were first analysed with the Kotler, Kartajaya & Young (2004) model and secondly ana-lyzed from a relationship marketing point of view. Analysis: The analysis shows that our sample of companies subconsciously work in align-ment with the Kotler et al. (2004) model and that they also work with different types of re-lationship marketing. Together this provides a holistic image of how traded companies work with a marketing perspective in their investor relations. Conclusion: After having analysed our empirical findings it is our belief that a marketing perspective is applicable when managing investor relations