Canada Awards 2012: Why is TD Bank so good at IR?

TD Bank has done it again. Yesterday, the Canadian financial services firm picked up six gongs at the IR Magazine Canada Awards 2012, including the grand prix for best overall IR by a large cap for the second year in a row. So what exactly is it doing so well?

The bank reveals the answers in an interview for the Investor Perception Study, Canada 2012, a report that profiles the best Canadian IR programs, ranked by a survey of more than 250 investors and analysts. Below we pick out five of the answers from that report:

1. Supercharged IR: in 2006, TD Bank’s CEO and CFO decided to make investor relations a competitive advantage for the bank, taking measures such as making the head of IR a senior vice president, expanding the size of the team and ensuring each team member can answer questions from the investment community.

2. Strong backing from management: speaking in the Investor Perception Study, Canada 2012, Colleen Johnston, TD Bank’s CFO, describes investors as the ‘lifeblood’ of the business. With that kind of commitment, it’s no wonder Johnston and CEO Ed Clark were both lauded by the investment community last night, picking up best IR by a CFO and best IR by a CEO, respectively.

3. The customer is right: head of IR Rudy Sankovic offers a platinum service through an extensive program of face-to-face interactions (400 last year) and making sure each analyst (all 17 of them) gets a call on the morning of an earnings release. In short, he gives them what they want.

4. Always improving: the bank regularly collects feedback from investors and analysts through formal perception studies and informal discussions.

5. No secret to success: despite the plaudits, TD Bank insists there is no secret to its successful IR program. ‘We don’t do it differently; we do it a little better,’ says Sankovic. ‘We have a mantra around transparency, responsiveness and value-add. Those are the three things that drive everything we do.’

By Tim Human

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