Analyst contacts and meetings: Discussions with and presentations to investors and analysts by telephone, email, website postings, conference calls, and meetings (large, small, and individual) to educate and update investors, analysts, and potential investors about the company.

Annual meetings : The meeting of shareholders required by the statutes of most states at which shareholders of record conduct the basic business of the corporation that includes electing directors, amending the company's Articles of Incorporation, selecting independent auditors, and voting on other actions that require shareholder approval. A special meeting of shareholders is a similar formal meeting, usually focused on subjects (new equity financing, proposed acquisition or merger, unsolicited takeover attempt, and others) that require rather immediate approval or rejection by shareholders. A special meeting may also be related to Crisis communication, discussed below.

Bank relations : The branch of the investor relations program that covers commercial and investment banks. The banks help finance the company's operations or have other working relationships with the company.

Benchmarking : A process by which companies compare their policies, procedures, practices, products, and performance against competitors in the same businesses or industry peer groups. In addition to using those results, investor relations also uses benchmarking to measure and evaluate two main items in its own efforts: the effectiveness of investor relations programs, and the information provided to the investment community by peer companies.

Broker contacts and meetings : Discussions with and presentations to Registered Representatives, who are also known as stockbrokers. An IR stockbroker program provides the education and updates that stockbrokers need to support their customers, the individual investors.

Buy side : The buy side is a summary term for institutional investors, which includes insurance companies, investment funds, mutual funds, asset management companies, money management firms, public and private pension funds, investment and asset management companies, banks and trust companies, foundations, endowment funds, and others. Their size can be as small as a boutique with a few professional investors or as large as a firm that manages billions of investment dollars.

Competitive intelligence : CI is the systematic collection and analysis of competitors, their strategies, current and likely products and services, and likely actions in the business market place, using only legal methods of collection. Investor relations performs two roles in supporting a company's competitive intelligence. The first role is protecting the company's competitive advantage by preventing the public disclosure of the company's competitive crown jewels and thereby denying competitors access to important information that could be used to erode the company's success and boost the competitor's. Investors do not get that information either. The second role is providing information on competitors from Wall Street analyst reports and from comments by analysts and investors. The information gleaned goes to the competitive intelligence officer for distribution, and if the information is important and time-critical, it also may be passed directly to the appropriate company leaders by the IRO.

Conference calls : Conference calls with investors and analysts have become routine for companies after the release of news about quarterly results. The call provides legal reminders, the major points of the news release, underlying details, and answers to listeners' questions. The quarterly results news release usually will include the details on how anyone can participate in the related conference call, which is normally a public event. The call also is used to explain the strategy and intricacies of other major announcements, including mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, divestitures, restructurings, product recalls, and other company actions. Webcasting of conference calls is largely supplanting telephone-only-based conference calls, since it offers lower cost and global distribution of the live call. In addition, most companies provide an archive of their conference calls on their website for the convenience of investors around the world. A conference call (more normally now, that includes a simultaneous webcast) also can provide live access to a presentation for those who were unable to attend the meeting in person. In addition to its lower cost and global reach, webcasting offers the advantage of being able to display slides, as well as the speaker. Several vendors offer conference call and webcast services.

Corporate advertising : This is the process of creating awareness, recognition, and interest in a company through paid placements in electronic and print media. In addition to the normal uses to help position a corporation, boost customer interest, explain major actions, or announce a corporate name change, advertising, especially print advertising, is often used in takeover contests. Corporate advertising offers a company control of its messages presented and the potential for broad distribution to many constituents – customers, investors, employees, suppliers, partners, regulators, governments, and communities.

Corporate governance : Corporate governance is an umbrella term that includes a variety of concerns and efforts to ensure that senior corporate management and the Board of Directors understand and respond to shareholder desires. In its most activist forms, corporate governance efforts seek to make shareholder interests regarding the price and value of a company's securities foremost in management's mind when major strategic and operating decisions are made. In recent years, the corporate governance movement also has involved other issues, including influence on the selection of officers and directors and the existence of anti-takeover provisions in a company's by-laws. The importance of good corporate governance continues to increase.

Corporate publications : These are the full range of publications a company prepares and distributes, both print and electronic. In investor relations, the most important publications include annual reports, data books, fact sheets, investor brochures or newsletters, quarterly news releases, and special reports, such as post-meeting reports or transcripts. In addition to mailing documents using distribution lists, websites and electronic mail enable immediate and broad distribution of company publications.

Corporate secretary : The corporate officer responsible for certain statutory and legal responsibilities of the corporation, generally including the execution of those documents and procedures relating to securities filings, stock transfer, and similar shareholder needs.

Crisis communication : Communications that occur during times of crisis can result from economic weakness, industry difficulties, war, or company financial or operating problems. Typical are cash shortfalls; financing failures; unsolicited merger or takeover proposals; fraud, waste, or abuse in government contracting; project or program failures; product recalls; product tampering or other public incidents; a fire, explosion, or similar tragedy at a major site; the mass resignation or dismissal of senior leaders; and other incidents. Industry or stock market pressures also can create a short-term crisis for the company. Product tampering or other major public incidents also can be investor relations crises, because they have monumental influence on investor perceptions and, therefore, on a company's stock price. Crisis communication and the plans companies prepare and execute to deal with such incidents have the potential to create understanding and to improve or keep public and investor attitudes positive about the company. These kinds of problems give the greatest challenges to a company's integrity, credibility, and reputation. It is important that the IRO be a member of the crisis communication team.

Debtholder relations : The branch of the investor relations program that covers the holders of the company's bonds and other debt instruments. This work usually includes presentations to and discussions with rating agencies that rate the investment quality of the company's debt. The IRO may play a leading or supporting role in debtholder relations.

Direct stock purchase plan : A plan that allows investors to purchase stock directly from the issuing company, thus avoiding brokerage commissions. Originally, these plans were limited to employees and current shareholders, but in recent years many companies have opened the plans to others to encourage greater individual stock ownership.

Disclosure : The process of timely public dissemination of material and nonmaterial information about a corporation through required filings with the S.E.C. (Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K, for examples) and other methods (news releases, analyst meetings, annual reports, letters to shareholders, responses to analyst and media queries, and so on). Disclosure is a concept that has evolved over time, challenged and supported by case law, and is a gray area of S.E.C. definition. The exact rules regarding disclosure are nettlesome because they do not exist in simple form, but there is agreement on one parameter: Disclosure of material information, which is information that can influence the price of a company's shares, when released, must be available to all usually through a public news release.

Dividend reinvestment plans : A DRIP is a form of systematic investment in which shareholders of a corporation can elect to have their dividends applied to purchase additional shares of the company's common stock in lieu of receiving those dividends in cash. The advantages for corporations are higher demand for the stock if the shares are purchased on the open market, reduced outflow of cash to pay dividends if the shares come from treasury stock, or a source of additional capital if the shares purchased with the cash dividends are newly issued shares. Shareholders benefit by being able to invest small dollar amounts, either without brokerage commission costs or at a lower price. Shareholders who participate in these programs still must pay their income tax liability on the dividend income that has been reinvested.

Email broadcast : Also known as a blast email or mass email, it is the instantaneous distribution of company information using electronic mail over the internet. Many companies have adopted automated systems that permit anyone visiting a company's website to add his or her name to the company's email distribution for news releases, SEC filings or notification of the filings, and other information. Vendors often perform the technical details of the service. Legal public disclose (if needed) still requires a broadly distributed news release (to key media and wire services) and the appropriate filing of the news release with the S.E.C. prior to the release and email broadcast.

Employee investor relations : Employees are often shareholders of the company and because they work there, they usually believe in the company. An IR program for employees offers important opportunities for IRO and staff to educate and update employee shareholders about the company. Employees who are shareholders are often highly motivated to achieve outstanding performance in their job and organization, take pleasure in the responsible role they have in the company, and act as informal company communicators with customers, friends, and neighbors. It is important that they be kept informed about the company and its progress. While most Employee Stock Ownership Plans, Employee Stock Savings Plans, stock option plans, and other incentive methods are developed by the Human Resources and Law departments, it is prudent that the IRO review the proposed plans to be sure they use the opportunity to create the most value for the company by making employee investment plans broadly available and easy to use.

Fax broadcast : Outside services that use the internet or multiple telephone lines to distribute information to large lists of investors who want to receive company information (principally news releases) by facsimile machine. Distribution using a fax or email broadcast service is essentially instantaneous to all shareholders and to those who have expressed their interest in the company. It is possible, though tedious, to perform the fax broadcast service from inside the company, unless it is computer-driven. A fax broadcast is also called a blast fax or mass fax. Also see Email broadcast.

Forecast : The creation of the best estimate (or range) of the operating and financial results likely to occur usually with a time horizon of one year or less. A forecast should always include the cautionary statement for forward-looking information; in many cases, you are best also to specify the most important specific assumptions on which the forecast has been based.

Form 13f filings : Data compiled quarterly by The United States Securities and Exchange Commission that indicates institutional ownership in public companies at the end of each quarter. Investment institutions managing $100 million or more for others are required to file the details of their equity holdings on S.E.C. Form 13f each quarter. In addition to providing a snapshot of where the shares are held, the listings and data from the filings also are used by IR supplier firms in performing statistical analyses to target the institutional investors most likely to be interested in investing in the company (please see Targeting). Also please see shareholder identification below.

Individual shareholder relations : The subset of IR focused on educating and updating individuals holding or interested in holding shares of the company's stock. They receive the same communications from the company as institutional investors, are invited to participate in conference calls, and are given assistance with their questions and administrative needs. This part of the IR program is especially important when the company produces consumer goods and services.

International investor relations : As the world continues to shrink and investors search for good stocks, most U.S. investor relations programs have become global with presentations, visits, and electronic mailings to attract and support European and Asian investors. Knowledge of the differences in economic and financial environments, laws governing securities, investment practices, national customs, and the company's explicit commitment to predictable visits are required for a successful international diversification of investors. Often, companies correctly view their global IR efforts as part of the support for global financing and the global marketing of its products and services.

Internet : The internet has become a primary method of communicating with investors and analysts. For many professional and individual investors, the company's website serves as the first point of contact and source of information about the company. In addition, electronic mail offers active notification instead of passively waiting until the investor decides to visit your website.

Investment clubs : An investment club is a collection of individuals, usually in a local community, who work as a group to analyze and invest in stocks and bonds. As a group they learn to use analysis and valuation tools to judge a company's fundamentals, performance, and prospects. Companies can present to these clubs and to their regional and national conferences to create awareness, recognition, and interest by the individual investors and their clubs.

Investment community : The major players in the equity investment community consist of security analysts and portfolio managers in investment institutions, security analysts in stock brokerage firms (and investment banks), shareholders, and stockbrokers.

The investment information flow in the classic model is shown below. Today, while the traditional flow continues, companies communicate directly with everyone on the chart.

Investment institutions : The major investment institutions include insurance companies that invest money from premiums to fund their insurance liabilities; pension funds that invest money from contributions set aside by companies to fund their employees' retirement benefits (same for government and teacher organizations); mutual funds that pool the money invested by individuals and organizations and, in turn, invest in a focused way based on the purpose of the fund (growth, capital appreciation, income, safety, and so on); and banks that invest money at the direction of their trust customers (custodial accounts) or on their behalf (bank-managed accounts).

In each investment institution, there is a research department and an investment department. The research department is similar to the research function in a brokerage firm, consisting of security analysts who are supervised by a director of research. The investment department consists of portfolio managers who are supervised by the head of the investment department (titles vary). Other institutional participants can include the investment committee, chief economist, investment strategist, and senior management.

Investment styles : Your supplier for information systems covering the structure, firms, and individuals in the global investment community can give you the detailed descriptions it uses to classify institutional investors and portfolios – by investment methodologies used and by the investment objectives they seek. Here is a quick summary of the popular investment objectives:

Growth : a stock that is expected to grow at a relatively high rate, usually with a high price-earnings ratio and little-to-no dividend payout. 

Growth at a reasonable price : a stock that is expected to grow at a moderately high rate, priced more moderately and with little-to-no dividend payout.  

Growth and income : a stock with reasonable growth prospects that also is likely to continue paying modest-to-moderate dividends. 

Value-growth : a stock having reasonable growth prospects, available at a price that appears to be modest-to-moderately lower than its intrinsic price. 

Value : a stock that appears to have a moderately low price compared to its intrinsic price – a bargain. 

Value-income : a stock that appears to have a moderately low price compared to its intrinsic price and a company has a reasonable record of dividend payout that is likely to be continued. 

Income : a stock that has a sustained record of dividend payments that is likely to be continued – typically called a widows-and-orphans stock because of its probable dividend payments.

Legal and S.E.C. documents :

Form 10-K : The annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission required to be filed by issuers of securities registered under Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This report is highly structured in form and content. It includes a description of the company's business, a description of its properties, any legal proceedings, matters submitted to a vote of security holders, financial statements, and other information. Since investment professionals use the Form 10-K heavily, the IRO and staff are intimately familiar with its form and content. While the documents filed routinely are prepared by the Law Department, the products of the IR program usually are directly incorporated into the filed documents. In many companies, the IRO reviews the content of the filings to be sure the messages and information are consistent with the company's IR program. Also see www.sec.gov/info/edgar/forms.htm and www.sec.gov/about/forms/secforms.htm for information about these and other forms.

Form 10-Q : A supplement to the 10-K, the Form 10-Q is required to be filed with the S.E.C. at the end of each of the first three quarters of the fiscal year. It is less elaborate in form and is intended to update the information available to investors. The IRO and staff provide similar content and review as in the Form 10-K.

Form 8-K : The report filed by a company with the S.E.C. to disclose any material event or other required disclosure that might affect the company financially or influence its securities. The report updates the public record with the S.E.C. between the regularly scheduled Form 10-Q and Form 10-K filings. A news release often will precede the Form 8-K filing.

Prospectus : The only means by which a security may be offered for sale under the Securities Act of 1933 is the prospectus. It typically contains historical and pro forma financial statements, a description of the company and its businesses, a substantial discussion of risks, a description of the terms and conditions of the security, the expected use of the proceeds, and other information, all of which is specified by law. Very little leeway is permitted. The purpose of the prospectus is to ensure that investors have access to sufficient information to make an informed decision and to prevent fraudulent statements. The IRO often contributes content and provides extensive review of the prospectus as a member of the financing team.

Registration statement : The document by means of which a security is registered with the S.E.C. under the provisions of the Securities Act of 1933, which registration is required for the interstate sale of securities and sale of securities through the mails. The registration statement contains the information included in the prospectus and other material.

Mailings : The dissemination of paper documents to constituents using direct mail. With instantaneous communications, especially electronic mail, becoming readily and almost universally available, distribution of paper documents is becoming less widely used except when legally required. The champions of the paper documents distributed in the IR program, despite the emergence electronic alternatives, remain the annual report and the proxy statement.

Media relations : Creating awareness, recognition, and interest for the company through the business, financial, general, trade, and electronic media is the objective of media relations. Media relations influences the company's constituents, including investors, and its messages must be closely integrated with investor relations, sales and marketing, advertising, employee communications, and other public relations activities, so the company speaks with consistent content and voice.

Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures : The process by which companies combine businesses, acquire other businesses or assets, and sell businesses and assets. These activities occur as companies focus their core businesses to strengthen competitive advantage and seek strategic, operating, and financial success. When the process includes hostile takeover offers, it becomes a major communications challenge. As a member of the mergers and acquisitions team, the IRO contributes substantial investor insight and the robust discipline of the stock market to the decision-making and positioning processes.

Odd-lot buybacks : The process by which a company buys back odd lots (usually fewer than 100 shares) from individual holders. The purpose of odd-lot buybacks is to reduce shareholder-servicing costs for companies with many individual investors. Odd-lot buyback programs offer to buy the shares; they can provide incentive but cannot force the shareholder to sell the shares to the company.

Proxy voting : The absentee voting process for annual and special shareholder meetings of companies where through a proxy card (or an electronic form of the proxy card), the shareholder votes for or against the items to be decided at the meeting and gives the right to vote his shares to a specified person or persons (the shareholder's proxy) at the meeting who will vote on the shareholder's behalf according to the shareholder's vote indicated on the proxy card. The proxy usually is also given the right to vote at his discretion on other matters that may be properly brought before the shareholder meeting. The planned subjects to be voted are described in the company's proxy statement, which is filed with the S.E.C. prior to distribution and mailed (or distributed electronically) to each shareholder.

Rating agency relations : please see Debtholder relations.

Registrar : The Registrar, usually a commercial bank or similar organization, keeps the record of the name and address of each registered shareowner and the number of shares owned. The Registrar also verifies that the ownership changes performed by the Transfer Agent have been done properly and that the same number of shares remains outstanding (unless additional new shares were issued or current shares cancelled).

Regulation Fair Disclosure (S.E.C.): Reg. F.D. was promulgated by the S.E.C. in 2000 and defined further the disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies. It took the subject of expected or anticipated earnings per share out of the informal discussions between the company and analysts and investors. Under Regulation F.D., all company comments about the outlook or expectations for EPS must be public, virtually always through a news release to the major media and wire services. Please see NIRI's website section on Regulation F.D. for more information.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 : Enacted in response to the Enron scandal and bankruptcy, followed by troubles at other companies, the SOX act and subsequent S.E.C. actions added several new reporting requirements. In brief, the requirements include:

• accelerated filing of Form 10-Ks and 10-Qs and posting to the company's website its periodic reports to the S.E.C.;
• that the CEO and CFO certify that the company's financial statements are accurate and to comment on the adequacy of the company's disclosure controls and procedures, as well as its internal controls and procedures;
• shortened the time for reporting trades in the company's securities by insiders (insiders are a defined set of leaders in the company) to two business days after the trades;
• and other items still evolving.

Please see NIRI's website section on SOX for more information

Sell side : The brokerage firms that sell stock to individuals and institutions are also known as the sell side of the market. The brokers of bonds and other debt instruments are included in the sell side. The research security analysts in the brokerage firms are one of the primary customers of the investor relations program. The investment research published by the analysts is sent directly to the brokerage's institutional customers and to individual investors, usually through the brokerage firm's registered representatives, who are also known as stockbrokers. The registered rep is also part of the sell side. Institutional investors are the buy side, described above.

Shareholder identification : This service attempts to get behind the daily and weekly trading activity in a company's stock to determine the major buyers and sellers during a specified time period and ownership at period end. The foundation of shareholder identification is the Form 13f, which is required to be filed quarterly with the S.E.C. by institutional investors who manage $100 million or more for others. Since the information in these filings is usually several months old, these IR service companies supplement the filings by calling the institutions and others (if authorized by the IRO), perform calculations, and make best estimates to determine the most probable trading and ownership on a more current basis. The efforts are based on history, relationships, and judgment and are not an exact science. Beneficial ownership – determining who provided the money for the investment, compared with where the shares are held or managed or both – is more difficult to determine with certainty, since the investments often are held (or parked) for convenience in several layers of financial institutions. For example, an investment in your company by a British company's pension fund (which would be the beneficial owner), might be held in the account of the Swiss pension fund manager, which holds the shares at a Dutch bank, which holds the shares in its account at a bank in New York, which holds the shares in the Central Depository Trust (also known as CEDE). It can get much more complicated than this example. The identification of the individuals who hold the right to vote the proxy card or have discretion to buy and sell the shares also are important questions that usually can be answered with some certainty by the shareholder identification services.

Shareholder services : The services of stock certificate tracking and issuance to ensure that individuals and others are notified of company meetings and other events. The term can also include those responsible for all administrative support to shareholders: address changes, dividend payments, stock certificates, historical stock price information for calculating capital gains or losses for tax or estate needs, and so on.

Shareowners or shareholders or stockholders : The terms are synonymous, with shareowner being the warmest of the three. The terms identify the individuals and institutions that own shares of common stock and (usually, depending on the class of stock) are entitled to vote at annual and special meetings of shareholders. Those individuals and institutions owning preferred shares usually are called preferred shareholders.

Stakeholder : A person, company, or institution that has an involvement with a company and usually participates directly or indirectly in the success of the company. Those include customers, employees, investors (shareowners and debtholders), suppliers, partners, and communities. Local, state, and federal governments are sometimes included as stakeholders, especially when the company's decisions strongly affect their citizens. Regulators are usually not included as stakeholders, even though they are involved with the company, since they must avoid conflicts of interest and cannot share in the company's success.

Stock exchange and specialist relations : The major stock exchanges (New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange) assign the trading of a company's stock to a specialist, who has the duty to maintain an orderly market in the stock, while acting as the broker's broker in trading the stock. On the Nasdaq Stock Market, this function is accomplished through a group of broker-dealers, called market makers.

Stockholders : Please see Shareowners above.

Stock market intelligence : This activity consists of compiling information from database services, perception and opinion studies, behavior research, news services, and similar research organizations on the stock market activity of a company's stock, and measuring that activity against a peer group of companies.

Stock market reports : Periodic reports are created for the Board of Directors and the senior leadership team that cover recent analyst and investor perceptions, stock market performance for the company and its industries, and comments on the investor relations program. The reports can take several forms, but generally include statistical tracking of the company's stock price, industry and peer company stock performance, relative stock market value, brokerage analysts' recommendations and forecasts, and comments on investor relations activity. Other items might include the results of meetings and conversations with investors, perception studies, and targeting activities. Often, a summary ratio analysis (price/earnings, price/book, EBITDA valuation comparisons, sales turnover, profit margin, return on assets, and so on) is compared with peer companies as well. The reports can be created in-house, consolidated mostly from purchased services, or provided entirely from the outside at the direction of the IRO. Report frequency usually is timed to precede Board meetings by two days, but the reports might be weekly for summary updates and quarterly or monthly for more comprehensive analysis.

Strategic planning and IR sharing : An important practice in companies is the frequent sharing of information between investor relations and strategic planning and development. This can be a casual or formal process.

Targeting : The practice of determining, using the characteristics of past investment patterns and key investment drivers, the institutions most likely to be interested in buying the stock of a company. Targeting, based on statistical best fit, helps companies to maximize their investor relations efforts by focusing a significant portion of their resources on the most likely new institutional investors. The targeting analysis is historic, so new institutional targets will emerge as they change their investment interests, methods, and objectives and as the company changes its investment attributes.

Technology for IR : Technology tools, proliferating continuously, such as internet services, video conference calls and webcasts, automated electronic mail distribution, and more sophisticated database services, enable investor relations to reach ever-larger audiences and gather, analyze, and disseminate better information faster and cheaper in the normal conduct of business. The term also refers to the computers and software used by the IR office.

Transfer agent : The Transfer Agent, usually a commercial bank or similar institution, is responsible for canceling stock certificates for shares sold, given, or part of estate distribution and for issuing the new certificates for shares acquired by the new owners.

Valuation : The process by which analysts and investors measure and estimate the intrinsic value of companies. They compare their calculated value to the stock market price to help them to decide to buy, sell, or hold. The valuation process tries to assess the worth from all that is known about the company, its industries, and the global and domestic economies. Since there are several methods used to calculate the valuation of a company, an outside service routinely is used to perform the work for the company. Using an outside service also avoids all record of the company calculating its fair valuation itself, which could be used against the company in a legal contest.

Value drivers : Those factors, such as cash flow, earnings, new products, technology advancements, sales momentum, brand strength (usually founded on the sustained high performance of a company's products and services; also the customer recognition of the brand name and or symbol), and management expertise, that will have the most influence over the value of a company in the future. Value drivers are key components of the investor relations and strategic communication messages.

Webcast : A webcast is an internet-based global public distribution of a live presentation. It can be voice only or voice and video, which often includes supporting slides, as well as the view of the speaker. A voice-only webcast can be done in conjunction with a telephone-based conference call, giving global public access to the telephone event. The presentation can be part of an investment conference or a company's own event. Most webcast investor presentations are archived on the companies' websites for varying periods of time. As with all presentations, successful webcasts require a well-practiced script, adequate preparation for answers to questions, effective and fast-loading slides, management of the show, and in the case of video, speaker training using videotape feedback to become a good talking head. Because investor webcasts (and conference calls) today are almost always public events, sure to be in the audience will be investors, analysts, competitors, and the media, who are free to report anything the company or the questioners present. Vendor companies take care of the technical details for webcasts.

Website : The electronic home of a company on the internet, created by a company to provide company information to interested investors and other constituents, to promote the company's products and services to customers and potential customers, and often to sell those products and services. The most effective investor relations sections on a company's external website provides all the information and links in one location that most investors want to know. A company's website is the first research stop for most individual and institutional investors.

Welcome programs for shareholders : Welcome letters and publications are often sent to each new shareholder when their name first appears on the company's records as a shareholder. The welcome letter is a positive start to the company's relationship with each individual and institutional investor. In addition to welcoming, the letter provides information about how to contact the company with questions or concerns, when dividends are paid, and a variety of other subjects. If the company publishes a shareholder information booklet, it is usually included with the letter.