Investor demand for access to corporate leaders in the developed and emerging markets of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa is at fever pitch, according to the sell-side firms that help connect the two groups.
“The market has been volatile and unpredictable, with macroeconomic factors such as inflation particularly challenging,” said Eric Lopez, head of equity EMEA research and global head of corporate access at BofA Securities. “In a challenging and rapidly evolving economic environment, investors want to stay close to corporates. This is why we continue to see strong demand for clear, stock-specific stories and this has driven even higher corporate and strategic access demand from investors.”
Lopez reported that corporate and strategic access activity is higher than ever, demonstrating how highly it is valued by both investors and corporates. “It remains one of the key pillars of our research services at BofA,” he said. “Some of our main competitors pulled back from corporate access post-regulatory changes, but we continued to invest all along, recognizing its value to our clients.”
The investment has paid off. BofA Securities has earned high marks in Institutional Investor’s 2023 rankings of the Top Corporate Access Providers for both Developed Europe and Emerging EMEA.
To select the members for Institutional Investor’s Europe’s Top Corporate Access Providers, we invited participants in the 2023 Developed Europe Research Team and 2023 All-Europe Executive Team Surveys to give feedback on the firms that provided the best corporate access, overall and on several attributes.
From the 2023 Developed Europe Research Team survey, representing the buy-side point of view, we received responses from 536 investors at 387 firms. This group rated sell-side firms on a scale from 1 to 5 for the overall corporate access they provided across six attributes: conferences; field trips; logistics; roadshows; team quality; and virtual events.
Each vote is weighted by the voting firm’s European commission range and the rating awarded to create the rankings. The Corporate Access Leaders table, based on the buy-side view, was calculated by adding together a firm’s overall corporate access scores within each attribute to produce a table of the top ten firms.
From the 2023 Developed Europe Executive Team survey, representing the corporate point of view, 358 corporates voted for sell-side firms and third-party providers. Voters were asked to name their top four firms in the following attributes: investor feedback, investor introductions, road shows, field trips/site visits/reversed road shows, logistics, team quality and conferences/virtual events.
Each attribute score was based on the place awarded to the firm. Scores are then aggregated to create the overall result. The Corporate Access Leaders table, based on the corporate view, tabulates each firm’s overall attribute scores to produce a table comprised of the top- ten firms.
The names of those surveyed are kept confidential to ensure their continuing cooperation. Voters are required to meet eligibility requirements, and all ballots are subject to review by II’s Research Operations Group.