Most public companies have a  shareholder conference call after announcing their quarterly reports and an annual shareholder meeting once yearly.  The mean and methods vary between management preference and company ability.  Large companies like Berkshire Hathaway have annual meetings that are like large conferences, with booths and events for the guest.  During this annual meeting, management discusses the happenings of the company and answer questions from investors.  Quarterly conference calls with shareholders are normally done through a call-in number, but some companies have gone digital and are now having their shareholder conferences on online chats.

For the purposes of this post, we will focus on Shareholder Conferences & Meetings as related to the micro-cap company, OTC company and penny stock companies.  Many of these companies have limited resources and organizing, scheduling and coordinating these events becomes the job of their investor relations team.

The Quarterly Shareholder Conference Call

The Quarterly Shareholder Conference Call normally begins with an introduction by the investor relations agent discussing the outline for how the time will be spent and is followed by the CEO or CFO reading through the company’s quarterly financials and happenings, which is normally followed by a question and answer session.  Before the shareholder conference call, a press release or announcement is made about where to find the information to get on the call.  This is normally done in conjunction with the company filing their 10-Q (The SEC form 10-Q is a comprehensive report of a company’s performance that must be submitted quarterly by all public companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). … In the 10-Q, firms are required to disclose relevant information regarding their financial position.)  Investor relations agents are in charge of setting up the conference call number or online chat platform to have the call as well as organizing the dissemination of the information to assure that all shareholders now where, when and how the conference call will take place.

The Annual Shareholder Meeting

In larger public companies, these annual shareholder meetings take place in a physical location, while at many micro-cap companies and smaller growth public companies, they take place in a similar fashion to the quarterly conference call; on a phone line or via a web presentation/meeting.  These annual meetings generally follow the same outline as the quarterly conference calls except they present the financial information as a whole for the year.  They also discuss what can be expected from the company in the following year.  An annual general meeting (AGM) is a mandatory yearly gathering of a company’s interested shareholders. KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Shareholder meetings are a regulatory requirement which means most public and private companies must hold them.
• Notification of the meeting’s date and time is often accompanied by the meting’s agenda.
• Meetings are generally administrative sessions that follow a specific format set forth well in advance.
• While the meetings of Berkshire Hathaway and Wal-Mart have become lavish events, the majority are fairly run-of-the mill.

Need help coordinating and putting together Shareholder Conferences & Meetings?  Cervitude Investor Relations can help.  Contact us today.