IR Monitor – 17 September 2025

In this week’s newsletter:

• “US listings market bursts back to life” with busiest week in four years, reports FT
• “When a company gets less than 70% support on a say-on-pay vote, activists are 3 times more likely to succeed in replacing board members”.  A study scaring the boardroom
  
• The case against quarterly reporting: the WSJ on “the bid to end quarterly earnings”
• The case for quarterly reporting: “sparser earnings would only worsen market myopia” 
  
• Unified IR guidelines established to standardise practices in the Middle East
• And finally: “AI can’t write good analyst research yet”. Alphaville on the revelation that no AI models can properly analyse company outlooks 

This week’s news

“US listings market bursts back to life” with busiest week in four years

Wall Street has seen its busiest IPO week since 2021, with seven large-cap companies going public, including Klarna, Gemini, and Legence, raising over $4bn, according to Renaissance Capital. The surge reflects pent-up demand and renewed investor confidence after a prolonged period of market volatility. The Financial Times notes that listings were generally well received, and bankers are hopeful this wave of activity will “lay the groundwork for a long-awaited US IPO recovery” following disruption caused by US tariffs earlier this year. With a strong pipeline expected throughout September, Sumit Mukherjee, Head of Equity Capital Markets, Markets Intelligence at JPMorgan, adds that “if this market backdrop holds, total US IPO volumes are on track to exceed last year.” 

A study that’s scaring the boardroom

New research reported by Bloomberg sends a clear warning to boards: low say-on-pay support can open the door to activist success. According to Strategic Governance Advisors, companies receiving less than 70% shareholder approval on CEO pay are three times more likely to see activists successfully replace board members. Directors on compensation committees are especially vulnerable, with a 5% higher chance of being targeted. The rise of activism has turned board roles into high-stakes positions requiring proactive engagement and clear communication. The publication also draws upon Tesla’s expanded 69-page CEO pay disclosure (vs 27 pages last year), illustrating that how compensation is framed can be just as critical as the figures themselves for instilling investor confidence.

The case against quarterly reporting

The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) is preparing to petition the SEC to allow U.S. public companies to report earnings twice a year instead of quarterly. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the proposal aims to ease the financial and administrative burden of quarterly reporting, which LTSE argues pulls executives away from long-term strategy. The exchange believes the shift could “save companies millions” and help revive interest in public markets, where the number of listed firms has dropped to around 3,700, nearly half the total in 1997. LTSE’s renewed push comes amid broader calls for regulatory reform. If approved, the change would apply to all US public companies, reshaping how investor relations teams manage disclosure and investor engagement.

The case for quarterly reporting

In a contrarian case to that of the LTSE, Stephen Gandel of Reuters argues in favour of retaining quarterly reporting requirements for public companies in the US. In response to the claims of stifling IPOs, Gandel points to the case of the UK having removed mandated quarterly reporting in 2014, an exchange which has roughly a third fewer public companies today than it did then. Rather, he argues, the increased adoption of private capital investment is the cause for the decline in flotations. On the accusations of short-termism, it is argued that the consideration of greater amounts of data, provided by quarterly reporting, allows companies to balance the peaks and troughs of the company’s performance and provides a greater long-term picture on outlook. One solution is to increase shareholder authority, not decrease transparency. Only then, Gandel argues, will investors be inclined to consider the company’s long-term value.

Unified IR guidelines established to standardise practices in the Mid-East

Following impressive market growth and in a drive to promote the expansion of regional capital markets, create a world-class market framework, and strengthen its position internationally, Middle East Economy reports that the GCC Financial Markets Committee has launched the GCC Exchanges Unified IR Guideline 2025 to enhance the quality and transparency of communications to investors. Aligned with global standards, the establishment of a centralised IR framework marks a major step forward for the Middle East’s capital markets by offering applicable recommendations on reporting practices, investor targeting and perception management, all tailored to strengthen the region’s market credibility. 

And finally … IR still needs analysts. AI can’t write good research yet

In a bid to test the ability of AI compared to that of the sell-side analyst, large language models have been subjected to a variety of tests designed to simulate the latter’s thought processes and be ranked by its humanlike features. The FT’s Alphaville column that the research from Bernstein Société Générale pitted household AI names against one another to answer questions on whether AI could both pull out data from public sources, such as earnings call transcripts, and also consolidate the information in order to draw meaningful conclusions from it. Whilst the AI models impressed at understanding investor concerns and scoring management’s responses, producing financial forecasts ultimately proved too much. Regardless of tailored prompts and repeat attempts, none of the AI models produced credible outlooks and all fell short on sufficient detail. It seems the role of the sell-side analyst remains safe from AI, for now.