Phil Marchant, Managing Partner - Comprend UK
Knowing what information your capital market stakeholders want and need is an important ingredient for creating the best possible corporate website.
These stakeholders use the corporate website as a key source of information, so stale or irrelevant content has the potential to damage your reputation.
Aside from those beneits, providing comprehensive inancial information increases transparency and trust, which is vitally important in today’s corporate world.
Given the pivotal role of your key stakeholders, understanding:
• who the capital market stakeholders are
• what information they need
• where they ind it
• how best to present it
...can make a big difference in the inancial success of a corporation. We’ve surveyed nearly 350 capital market stakeholders to answer these questions and help you ine-tune your corporate site to better fulil the needs of these individuals.
We call it the Capital Market Survey - and these are the results.
Respondents
Continents
Sectors
We asked business journalists, analysts and investors how they use corporate websites and social media when looking for information about listed companies.
Included were questions about general company and press information, as well as information about reporting, share, IR, governance and CSR. The demand for fundamental functions was also investigated.
341 stakeholders from 20 sectors across 5 continents, participated in the Capital Market Survey in 2015.
Based on the indings, we present our tips on how to create engaging online corporate content tailored to the needs of the capital market.
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Send corporate news updates via email. Nearly all capital market stakeholders rated this as the most important channel to receive corporate news.
of business journalists
of investors and analysts
… stated receiving updates via email was important.
The capital market consists of several different stakeholders with varying ways of obtaining and scrutinising information.
With each group having different information needs, it can be diicult for corporations to present the correct info in a clear and concise way.
To aid in this process, Comprend has created capital market “userpersonas”:
The business journalist The sell-side analyst
This report focuses on how corporations can best communicate with these individuals.
The buy-side analyst
(including institutional investors)
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Persona 1:
What we mean by “business journalist”:
The business journalist is someone whose job is to gather information about news and events that impact the economy and distributes their work through mass media for the beneit of the general public.
Where they get their information
The business journalist primarily looks for company information on the corporate website and via independent online sources such as Datastream, Bloomberg and Reuters
Financial.
How they read annual reports
67% of business journalists surveyed preferred to read annual reports in PDF format and accessed reports most often from a desktop computer.
The business journalist is almost twice as likely to use trade press (both print and digital) as a key source, in comparison to the other stakeholder groups. This group was also the most likely to read the corporate blog.
Interestingly, business journalists were the least likely to use mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to read annual reports. The corresponding numbers being
20% (tablets) and 10% (smartphones) of individuals ranking these as their preferred devices to read annual reports.
Most requested content on a corporate site
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that
82% of business journalists rate contact details of a press contact as an important aspect of the corporate website.
Social & Digital Media
Business journalists were the most likely out of all capital market stakeholders to utilise corporate social media channels.
Wikipedia is the most important digital media channel for business journalists, which is used to ind general company information. The second most used social media channels are Twitter, which is used to stay up-to-date about the latest corporate news; and LinkedIn, which is used to ind information about key executives.
The bottom line
Business journalists are looking to easily access the information they need, without digging too deep. That said, corporate websites can cater to the needs of journalists by increasing the accuracy of internal search functions, providing illustrations & infographics to explain data and offering searchable archives of press releases.
Corporate websites still have a way to go regarding pleasing business journalists. Only 41% said that corporate websites fulil their expectations, which decreased slightly over the past year.
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Persona 2:
What we mean by “sell-side analyst”:
The sell-side analyst is someone whose job is to evaluate the company on behalf of a brokerage irm, evaluating companies for future earnings growth and other investment criteria.
Where they get their information
The sell-side analyst primarily looks for company information on the corporate website and via independent online sources such as Datastream, Bloomberg and Reuters
Financial.
Sell-side analysts were also more likely to read printed daily newspapers, than the digital counterparts.
How they read annual reports
The sell-side analyst prefers the annual report in PDF format, with 89% rating this as their preferred format. 99% of sell-side analysts prefer to read an annual report from a desktop computer.
Of the three capital market stakeholder personas, sell-side analysts were the most likely to read printed, hard copies of an annual report, whereby 35% rated this format as relevant.
Most requested content on a corporate site
The most requested information from sellside analysts is inancial outlook data and
AGM information, with 85% ranking this as very important.
88% of sell-side analysts rated a named investor contact as very important.
Social & Digital Media
Wikipedia is the most important digital media channel for sell-side analysts, which they are most likely to use to locate general information about a company. The second most used social media channel for sell-side analysts is LinkedIn, which is used to ind information about key executives.
The majority (72%) of sell-side analysts do not use Facebook at all for information pertaining to a company.
The bottom line
Sell-side analysts are looking for fully responsive corporate websites, as these individuals were the most likely out of the three personas to use their mobile devices. That said, 65% rated responsive design as a very important aspect of corporate websites.
Sell-side analysts are keen to know more information about upcoming inancial events, and ask that all information is presented in an easy to navigate, visually pleasing way.
Sell-side analysts are generally satisied with corporate websites -
78% stated that corporate websites fulilled their expectations. This has increased from 71% in 2014.
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Persona 3:
What we mean by “buy-side analyst”:
The buy-side analyst (including institutional investors) are individuals who work for buy-side money management irms such as pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds with a mandate to ind investment opportunities that improve the net worth of the portfolio they work for.
Where they get their information
Similar to the other stakeholder groups, the buy-side analyst primarily looks for company information on the corporate website and via independent online sources such as
Datastream, Bloomberg and Reuters
Financial. However, buy-side analysts were the group most likely to use SEC Edgar and other regulatory databases, with 55% rating this as an important source.
The buy-side analyst was the least likely to utilise corporate social media channels, with only 18% stating it was a relevant source for information.
How they read annual reports
Like the other stakeholders, buy-side analysts prefer to read annual reports in PDF format, with 72% rating this as their preferred format. 97% of buy-side analysts prefer to read an annual report from a desktop computer.
This group was the most likely out of the three to rate online reports as important, with 68% rating this format as important.
Buy-side analysts were also the most likely to utilise a tablet to view the annual report, with 38% stating they read an annual report from a tablet in the last 12 months.
Most requested content on a corporate site
Buy-side analysts rate geographical spread of production and sales as the most important element of information on a corporate website, with 82% saying this is important, followed by group strategy (81%) and market share (80%).
93% of buy-side analysts require a named investment contact at the organisation.
Social & Digital Media
Buy-side analysts are the least likely to use corporate social media channels with 72% stating they do not use Facebook; 68% stating they do not use Twitter; and 56% stating they do not use LinkedIn.
They are, however, very likely to use Wikipedia - 78% claim to use
Wikipedia to locate information pertaining to a company.
The bottom line
Buy-side analysts are looking corporate sites to offer both detailed information, as well as visual elements like infographics explaining data. Information should be easily accessible and, where possible, link to latest inancial reports and press releases provided.
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Buy-side analysts are generally satisied with corporate websites -
75% stated that corporate websites fulilled their expectations. This slightly decreased from 77% stating they were happy with corporate websites in 2014.

Provide contact details for a press and investment oicer.
of business journalists
of investors and analysts
… rate details of an press/ investment oicer as important.
Providing the capital market with relevant and timely information is important as it enables investors to achieve better inancial planning, and helps the capital market correctly evaluate a company’s performance.
The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
Of all the respondents in the survey, capital market stakeholders require information about a corporation’s business operations. Other important topics include geographical spread of production & sales, fast facts with key info, market share and list of competitors.
94% Information about the business operations
91% Geographical spread of production and sales
91% R&D innovation
89% Market share and list of competitors
6

Fast
Facts i
Information on R&D innovation was more important to investors than journalists.
Fast facts were the most important to journalists. This is likely because they need quick access to key information.
Films presenting a company’s business is increasingly important to the capital market. In 2011, 29% felt this was important content - whereas 42% ind it important in 2015.
The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information very important, ranking it a three, four or ive on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
All respondents in the Capital Market Survey rated information about future inancial outlook as highly important. Subsequent topics that received high rankings include inancial targets, inancial presentations from summits and inancial target achievements. This data shows that capital market stakeholders are looking for data and hard facts about a company’s inancial standing. They want to know a breakdown of goals and how those goals plan to be achieved.
92% Financial outlook
91% Financial targets & achievements
90% Financial presentations from summits, AGMs etc.
Buy-side analysts, sell-side analysts and business journalists had different topics they rated as most important within the inance section.
… rated AGM information as most important to them.
… rated inancial targets and achievements most important to them.
… rated inancial igures overview as most important.
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The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information very important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
Share information is particularly in demand amongst investors and analysts. They rate information about dividend policy & history as the most important topics - which mirrors the indings of 2014.
Business journalists deviated from this by rating key information about alternative market places, OTC and dark pools as most important to them.
91% Dividend policy
88% Information about major shareholders
85% Dividend history
Fast Fact 78% of stakeholders thought a remuneration policy was important in
2011 - increasing in importance by 12% over the past 5 years.
It goes without saying that debt and investor relations information is particularly important to investors. The capital market rates information about key debt ratios, loan portfolios and corporate bonds as most important. Key debt ratios was slightly more important to institutional investors than the other stakeholder groups.
87% Loan portfolio (liabilities/loans, current liabilities)
87% Corporate bonds (non-current liabilities)
85% Key debt ratios
Fast Fact All topics under debt/IR were rated quite important. The lowest rated topic was “investment proposition” with 79% of stakeholders rating it important.
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The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information very important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
The ability to sort press releases by time and category is the most important content in the press section. Almost as many think that having access to an archive of press releases is a must-have under the press section.
90% Archive of press releases
90% Ability to filter press releases by time and category
89% Archive of news articles
Fast Fact
Interestingly, video galleries have increased in stakeholder importance signiicantly over the past 5 years. This is likely due to the importance of interesting content and interactive elements.
70
60
50
40
30
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information very important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
75% Anti-corruption & responsible tax policies
74% CSR strategy & Code of Conduct/Ethics policy
74% Environmental data
Interestingly, the most requested topics in CSR were anti-corruption and responsible tax policy - which were new survey topics last year and have already made it to the top of the list. The importance of these topics shows that stakeholders require companies to act responsibly - regardless of what country they operate in.
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Despite the fact that responsible tax planning is a new topic, it has already made it into the top three CSR topics of interest to the capital market - whereby 75% view this information as very important. This is an area that the majority of companies have yet to consider providing information about, but shows that investors and journalists view tax evasion and responsible tax planning as an important area of CSR.

The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information very important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
The most important topic within the corporate governance section is information about the board of directors and group management.
Interestingly, all three stakeholder personas rated this as highly relevant for them.
The breakdown of board share transactions was particularly requested by analysts and investors, but slightly less important to business journalists. Share transactions by insiders was a topic of interest to all three stakeholder groups, which shows that transparency in corporate governance continues to interest the capital market.
87% Board of directors
86% Group management
84% Share transactions by insiders
84% Annual general meeting
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The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
The annual report offers a rare opportunity to give viewers a snapshot of what happened during the year. It’s not just a time to present facts and igures, but also to tell the story about the company’s journey and what exciting things happened throughout those 12 months.
93% Latest annual report in PDF
91% Archived annual reports
90% Archived interim reports
87% Latest online annual report
86% Latest interim report in PDF
67% Latest online interim report
%
90
88
86
84
82
80
Online annual report importance amongst capital market stakeholders over the past 5 years.
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Fast
Facts
PDF reports still are the most desired formats to capital market stakeholders. However, the stakeholder groups don’t share the exact same needs. Business journalists request more summarised information while analysts and investors are looking for more detailed information.
Despite the fact that capital market stakeholders still rank PDF annual reports as the most important format,
71% rate digital annual reports as very important.
Providing the latest interim report in
PDF was more important to investors and analysts than business journalists.
Generally speaking, sell-side analysts were more likely than their buy-side counterparts to require an archive of annual and interim reports.
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Keep your corporate website up-to-date and easy to use. The corporate website was rated as the most important channel for company information by all capital market stakeholders.
That said, it’s vital that you capitalise on this by ensuring the corporate website meets reader’s needs.
In order to be a successful communicator, one must know what to say, but where to say it. After all, what good is the right information if the target audience can’t ind it?
Which of the following sources of information about listed companies do you use in your profession?
78% 33% 33%
When it comes to gathering information about a corporation, 97% of capital market stakeholders utilise the corporate website as its key information source. That said, it is vital that the corporate site offers accurate, organised and relevant information.
33% of respondents use corporate social media channels. This might seem quite low, but corporate social media activities often encounter diiculties regarding consistent activity - which means stakeholders will be less likely to turn to social media channels due to inconsistency and lack of timely information.
Business journalists were the most likely to utilise corporate social media channels.
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Corporate discussion forums and customer forums have increased in importance since
2014. This year, 33% of respondents are utilising this medium as an information source, while last year this number was
23%, respectively. These sources allow for collaborative communication and transparent information sharing - which could be attributed to their increase in popularity.

Although 97% of capital market stakeholders utilise corporate websites as a key information source, online sources such as
Bloomberg and Reuters took a close second, with 96% utilising the medium. This was followed by online news sources such as ft.com
and wsj.com
, with 86% of respondents using the source.
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
Datastream,
Bloomberg,
Reuters
Financial and other databases and/or news agencies ft.com, wsj.com
and other websites of daily papers businessweek.com, Trade press fortune.com and websites other business magazine’s
(sector-related magazines, websites industryspecific)
Yahoo Finance,
Google Finance and other free portals
SEC Edgar and other Regulatory databases
+10%
The use of Bloomberg, Reuters and news agencies has increased by 10% since last year.
+23%
Capital market stakeholders are 23% more likely to use daily newspaper websites such as ft.com or wsj.com
compared to 2014.
29-40%
The largest increase was in the use of
Yahoo Finance, Google Finance and other free portals, which jumped from
29% to 40% between 2014 and 2015.
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Although 97% of capital market stakeholders utilise corporate websites as a key information source, online sources such as Bloomberg and Reuters took a close second, with 96% utilising the medium.
74% Daily business papers (e.g. FT, WSJ)
52% Business magazines (e.g. Business Week, Fortune)
50% Trade press (sector-related magazines, industry-specific)
The capital market is slightly more likely to obtain information via online sources such as the WSJ.com (86%) versus the printed version of the WSJ
(74%). This follows the sector trend of the increasing importance of internet news sources.
Respondents are also more likely to use digital trade magazines (54%) versus their printed counterparts
(50%). Which reinforces the digital news source trend.
Interestingly, respondents were more likely to use printed magazines like
Business Week, rather than their online counterparts such as businessweek.com. This could be attributed to magazine purchases made during business travel, or the lingering desire for traditional print mediums.

Ho w?
Go responsive.
With the changes to Google’s algorithm, coupled with stakeholders becoming increasingly likely to access websites via mobile devices, it’s necessary to adapt the corporate website to the mobile environment.
With all the different devices, coupled with the various ways of consuming information, it can be diicult to ind the right mix to reach your intended audience.
The info shows the percentage of respondents that ind the information important, ranking it a 3, 4 or 5 on a scale from 1–5, where 1 is least important and 5 is most important.
+21%
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2% From an app
One of the major differences between the online annual report and the PDF or printed ones is that the digital report can offer interactivity and customisation based on the readers interests and desire to dig deeper into certain topics, without being overwhelmed.
45% Online reports
30% Printed copy
22% Printed from website
88% PDF on the screen
The capital market still prefers to read annual reports from their computers (98%), followed by tablets (29%) and inally smartphones
(11%). The fact that capital market stakeholders prefer to view annual reports from their computers could be attributed to poor responsive design, or the diiculty reading PDFs from smaller screens.
That said, the number of capital market stakeholders reading annual reports from their smartphones increased by 5% over the past year.
Which proves that multi-device use is not just a trend - it’s the new normal. Companies should consider prioritising responsive online reports, providing an optimal viewing experience - whatever device the stakeholder choses to use.
Computer (laptop/desktop)
Tablet
Smartphone
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47%
CSR report presented in a separate report
47% of respondents ranked it very important to have a CSR report presented separate from the annual report. This means that capital market stakeholders prefer to have a stand alone report focusing on
CSR data, rather than have it integrated into an annual report.
Investors were more likely to request separate reports, which could be due to the need to have pared down reports to quickly assess inancial data.
“Do CSR reports provide enough information?”
“Do you read CSR reports?”
58%
.. say yes
58%
.. say no
29%
CSR report fully integrated into most of the sections of the annual report
Business journalists were the most likely to require more information in a CSR report This is signiicant, as it shows the increasing interest journalists - and therefore readers - have in a company’s CSR activities. After all, journalists wouldn’t ask for more CSR information if it wasn’t of interest to the general public.
Sell-side investors, were the least likely to read a CSR report. This could mean that CSR is less likely to play a part in investment decisions, or it could mean that CSR reports are not presented in a way that is of interest to sell-side investors.
Everyone Business journalists Sell-side analysts Buy-side analysts
Yes 58% 43% 67% 51%
No 42% 57% 33% 49%
Everyone Business journalists Sell-side analysts Buy-side analysts
Yes 42% 43% 33% 50%
No 58% 57% 67% 50%
To increase readership, companies could consider tailoring the information by adding inancial drivers and achievements to make CSR reports more interesting to investors.
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