Qatar Stock Exchange CEO, Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori (centre), with the award winners during the Investor Relations Excellence Programme Awards Ceremony held at Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Doha on Wednesday. Pic: Baher Amin/The Peninsula
Doha: The Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) honoured the winners of the 2019 IR Excellence Programme at the 5th Annual IR Excellence Awards ceremony in Doha on Wednesday. During the event, QSE also launched its new website as part of its modernisation strategy.
The Investor Relations (IR) Excellence Programme surveyed the expert opinion of the domestic and international investment community. The programme also featured a detailed ranking of corporate investor relations websites.
The award winners in different categories are: Ooredoo — Best Qatari company overall; Qatar National Bank (QNB) — Best large cap company; Vodafone — Best mid cap company; Al Meera — Best small cap company; Ajay Bahri of Ooredoo — Best Chief Financial Officer; Andreas Goldau of Ooredoo —Best Investor Relations Officer; Abdulla Al Khalifa of QNB — Best Chief Executive Officer.
Best Investor Relations Websites are: Ooredoo: First place, Qatar National Bank (QNB), Second place and Qatar General Insurance & Reinsurance; UDC and Aamal: Joint 3rd Place.
Qatar Stock Exchange CEO, Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori, expressed satisfaction of the advanced IR level achieved by Qatari listed companies, and added: “For the fifth year running, we have rewarded companies and individuals that have demonstrated the highest investor relations standards in the country. We introduced our own IR Rules in October last year reflecting the importance of this function and the people who are central to that communication process.
"In addition, this is a good moment in time to reflect on our ongoing efforts to promote investor relations overall and we take this opportunity to remind everyone of recent initiatives in ESG and the forthcoming introduction of XBRL-based reporting and disclosures, all initiatives aimed at improving disclosure practices”.
QSE’s Director of Listing Department Abdul Aziz Al Emadi said: “QSE has worked with Iridium in designing a framework that reflects international best practice. The framework relies on two separate areas, namely direct feedback from both local and international investors and also a transparent website ranking mechanism”.
He added: “Our figures over the last few years tell us that we are all making progress. In fact, we know that the average score has increased thirteen percentage points since we launched the programme.”
The Excellence Programme was launched in 2015. The Programme is globally benchmarked against best practices to ensure a transparent methodology.
