A great deal has changed in the IR world over the last 15 years but we were surprised how much remains the same when our long-time client Mark Steinkrauss stumbled over an article from 1991 discussing European IR for U.S. companies.  The article (see below) highlights the difficultly in indentifying shareholders beyond the meager public filing information and the lack of European sell-side research coverage of U.S. stocks.  Interestingly enough, our biennial European Stock ID survey, according to the article, only identified around 50 UK and European funds holding U.S. stocks in those days.

Today we often identify more than 400 institutional holders of U.S. stocks in our biennial surveys, and it’s not unusual to find 10 – 15% of a company’s capital held by European investors. The one other major change has been the distribution of materials which was by post or fax in those pre-internet days.  Although the European single market has developed considerably, for IROs it remains a series of separate markets in many ways.

The article can be found here.