Denis Jasmin has been VP of IR at AtkinsRealis since 2007 and also chaired CIRI’s board from 2018 to 2020. He discusses managing a corporate name change, investor days, activists and board level investor engagement. He also provides tips for those wanting a career in IR and reveals the best and worst parts of the job.
AtkinsRéalis (ATRL.TO) is a >C$13 billion Canadian engineering services and nuclear company. The company deploys global capabilities locally to its clients and delivers unique end-to-end services across the whole life cycle of an asset including consulting, advisory & environmental services, intelligent networks & cybersecurity, design & engineering, procurement, project & construction management, operations & maintenance, decommissioning and capital. The breadth and depth of the company’s capabilities are delivered to clients in strategic sectors such as Engineering Services, Nuclear and Capital. The company, formerly known as SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., changed its name to AtkinsRéalis in September 2023. It was founded in 1911 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
Denis Jasmin joined AtkinsRéalis in 1999 as Assistant Corporate Controller and became Vice President of Investor Relations in 2007. Denis is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) with 35 years of experience. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Montreal. In 2022, Mr. Jasmin earned the designation of F.CIRI, from the Canadian Investor Relations Institute (CIRI). (Fellow designation is the highest honour for investor relations professionals in Canada). Denis served as director of the National Board of Directors of CIRI from 2014 to 2020 and chaired its Board from 2018 to 2020. Denis started his career at PwC as an auditor and held finance roles in companies such as TELAV-ISTS, Thibault, Messier, and Savard & Associates Inc.
You transitioned from being a corporate controller (an internal role) to IR (an external role), was that challenging?
It was not too difficult. As Corporate Controller, I was in charge of the MD&A and I was reviewing projects. We were a lot smaller at that time, so I knew the numbers pretty well and I have a CPA background. So, really the challenge for me was about messaging and communicating numbers to the public because I didn’t have any communication training or background. But management was really helpful at that time. When you do one-on-ones with management, then you understand the messaging and what they want to communicate to investors.
So I learned on the spot and as I knew the numbers and the projects, it made the transition pretty easy for me.
Discuss the changes you’ve seen in investor relations since you started in the role in 2007?
There have been many changes between 2007 and today. When I started in IR, the CFO had to give me special projects to occupy me. Today I don’t have any free time! Also, back then, we were smaller and only had five sell-side analysts covering us compared to 10 today (which is the right number). Back then the sell-side covered maybe eight companies vs. between 15 and 20 today. In 2007, analysts had the time to chat about the strategy vs. today analysts are more model-oriented (given their time pressures during earnings season).
Given those time pressures, we need to provide better presentations with fuller disclosure as analysts/investors no longer have the time for a 20/30 minute chat with each company they cover around earnings. So that’s a big change and I think the quality of research has suffered as the sell-side just don’t have as much time as they used to.
Investor Days are also a relatively new phenomenon. I think it’s really important that you do an Investor Day and present the strategy of the company (rather than just site visits). Every three years is the right cadence for us as we present our three-year strategic outlook.
Another change is that today we have a lot more hedge funds, more activists and more ESG focused funds. That requires a bunch of information. And you also need to do ESG roadshows now.
There has also been change at the board level. They want to know a lot more about investors. What are we hearing? What are the investors interested in? We also do roadshows with the Chairman now. We never did that in the past. And I think just in general you have to do more roadshows today to make sure that you have the right message out there.
Social media can be another challenge. It doesn’t take much, some people posting something and all your messaging is wrong out there and that needs to be addressed quickly.
How did you navigate the name change from SNC-Lavalin to AtkinsRéalis?
That project was largely managed by our communications team and was a lot of work. From the IR perspective, I had to select a new ticker, and I organized a market open with the TMX the morning of the name change.
The company has a number of segments and end markets, how do you simplify the message for newcomers to the story?
It’s a complex business but management has been working for five years to simplify the structure of the company. For example, we have sold our oil and gas business, we have exited our construction (LSTK) projects etc. Now we define ourselves as an engineering and nuclear company. When I talk to investors, I always try to bring them to our purpose, which is ‘engineering a better future for our planet and its people’.
The story is mainly about energy transition/climate change and aging infrastructure. While we have eight end markets, most of our work is in transportation, buildings and places and defense.
Also, back in 2007, we were in 100 countries with offices in 30 countries (and that’s what got us into trouble!), but our focus is now mainly Canada, the US, the UK and the Middle East.
As a Canadian company, do you struggle to attract foreign shareholders?
It’s always been a challenge for me to get more foreign shareholders partly because we only trade on the TSX, so 80% to 85% of my shareholders are in Canada. For my peers, it’s pretty much the same. Also, there are a number of engineering firms in the US so it can be difficult to attract US investors. In Europe/UK, I target global fund managers.
Average turnover?
Our main shareholders have been invested in the stock for 15/20/25 years. Our top four shareholders represent about 45% of the shares outstanding. One of them is CDPQ (Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec) and they are very supportive of us. A recent change (since September 2024) is the number of hedge funds interested in the story due to our nuclear exposure. (Microsoft, Google and Amazon have recently struck deals with operators and developers of nuclear power plants to fuel the boom in data centers). There are only a few players in nuclear and AtkinsRéalis comes top of the list as we have a real product that can be delivered or built now.
The stock price has performed exceptionally well over the last three years. What’s the reason?
We saw an increase of 79% last year and 77% year to date this year.
#1 Simplification of the company
#2 Nuclear
#3 Free cash flow generation and delivering better margins.
#4 Our organic revenue growth is one of the best in the industry so that’s got investors excited.
How many conferences do you attend a year?
Eight conferences a year, mostly in Canada but we will try and do more US conferences.
Does your nuclear exposure make you uninvestible for some investors?
Only three years ago, some investors couldn’t invest in AtkinsRéalis because we derived more than 10% of our revenue from nuclear. Yet 35% of the nuclear revenue was actually waste management and decommissioning. Today investor attitudes have completely changed – they are less concerned about our exposure. Indeed, investors believe that nuclear is part of the solution to decarbonize the world and will enable governments to meet their net carbon targets between now and 2050.
Who are you key ESG data providers/partners?
The required questionnaires take up a lot of time, so we use six firms –
MSCI, EcoVadis, ISS, Sustainalytics, CDP climate change report and S&P Global.
I would note that in recent investor meetings, we rarely get asked ESG questions so that’s a new development.
In spite of the apparent decreasing interest in ESG from investors, we take ESG seriously. Since 2019/20 we’ve disclosed our ESG scores on our website and have pushed ourselves to improve both our disclosure and our scores.
How frequently do you host Investor Days?
Every three years when we present our three-year strategy. It’s big event to organise, it is costly and there’s a lot of management time involved. We do site visits in between. Our last Investor Day was in Toronto but hybrid (since Covid our Investor Days have been hybrid which works well).
What’s the best part of your job?
Talking about the business, the amazing, incredible projects that we do.
And obviously working very closely with the CEO and CFO and the decision makers in the company. Also, it’s always exciting traveling to major cities such as London and New York.
The worst part?
Unsubstantiated rumours as I then have to deal with the unnecessary panic from the sell-side/investors!
Any tips for in-house IR?
As well as knowing the financials of the company well, you also need to understand the business and/or the products and services. Be curious about all the details. Visit various offices and projects, go into the details so that when you talk to the market and investors, you’ve got all the details.
By Gill Newton, partner at Phoenix-IR. This interview appeared in IR Magazine.