Reaching Out: Devising Individual Shareholder Programs

This report investigates how individual shareholders contribute to the development of a corporation, and how corporations can best attract and retain their retail shareholders. Based on the proceedings of a Working Group of leading U.S. companies and financial service providers as well as a survey of and interviews with Fortune 1000 companies, it also looks at how the trend toward individual ownership impacts key factors such as the company's stock price volatility and shareholder value.

The study finds that companies need to reach a greater and more diversified range of individual investors to build trust and obtain and retain capital, while interacting with them as a dynamic group of shareholders. What seems certain is that both shareholder services and the investor relations function will increasingly have to respond in concert to common challenges.

Topics covered:

• The Drivers for Courting Individual Investors
• Communicating with Investors
• The New (Electronic) Communication Challenge
• Relations Workload: Maximizing Efficiency
• Market Decline and the Impact on Individual Shareholders

The full report also includes case studies of Dell Computer Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, and Lockheed Martin Corporation, as well as a profile of survey participants and more than 30 tables and charts.