29/08/2017 05:49 AST
The Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE), in collaboration with Iridium Investor Relations, is launching the IR Excellence Programme for the third year since its successful launch in 2015.
The QSE has highlighted this as an opportunity for publicly-listed companies to excel, as the IR Excellence Programme will once again recognise their achievements and proactive efforts to foster professional investor relations standards.
QSE chief executive officer Rashid bin Ali al-Mansoori said, “The IR Excellence Programme reflects our sincere desire and best intentions to achieve international best practices. We aim to see the QSE’s listed companies committed to improving the flow of information for a more transparent and better-informed market environment. The IR Excellence programme recognition is one of the most significant programmes in the region, rewarding listed corporates for their investor relations efforts.”
The QSE IR Excellence Programme last year crowned Ooredoo as Qatar’s best company overall for excellence in Investor Relations.
There was also a formal recognition for small-, mid- and large-cap companies, the best chief financial officer and best investor relations officer as well as the top three corporate investor relations websites in the country.
For the third year running, all Qatari companies will automatically be entered into the IR Excellence programme. The fair and transparent programme methodology will remain unchanged. Qatar-listed companies will have until mid-November 2017 to review and implement upgrades to their investor relations efforts.
A public voting system and a detailed website ranking of all companies will be conducted from mid-November to end-December 2017. All members of the investment community will be eligible to vote for the best investor relations efforts. Iridium, on behalf of the Qatar Stock Exchange, will manage the distribution of e-mails and questionnaires to a database of over 2,000 regional and international investor and broker contacts who are active in the Qatari market. The firm will also rank the company’s websites.
Abdul Aziz al-Emadi, director, (Listing Department) at the QSE said, “Earlier this year, we announced a 20% year-on-year performance improvement of Qatari listed companies’ IR websites. We look forward to building on this success and seeing an even stronger engagement from companies, in order to further improve the IR standards for the benefit of all market participants.”
The IR Excellence Programme has been benchmarked globally against best practices to ensure a fair, credible and transparent methodology. The methodology and all ranking criteria are made public in advance to the public. This enables companies to review categories and selection criteria, and gives them advance notice to adjust their investor relations efforts, especially with regards to their investor relations websites.
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The Qatar index ended a three-session losing streak yesterday, adding 0.1% to 8,941 points as banks helped nudge stock markets in the Gulf higher.
Saudi Arabian lenders, which may benefit from a potential upgrade of the kingdom by index compiler FTSE at the end of next month, outperformed others in the region.
Egypt firmed on buying by foreign funds.
Late next month FTSE will announce its decision on whether to include Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in its secondary emerging market index.
Analysts at Arqaam Capital and EFG Hermes believe the chances are high for a positive decision in both cases.
One of Riyadh’s largest listed lenders, National Commercial Bank, added 1.5% and Samba Financial Group rose 0.9%. EFG Hermes estimates that if NCB is added to the FTSE index, and a
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