Danes have reporting covered, but IR and press lags behind

By Timmy Fredriksson

The websites of the 24 largest companies in Denmark have been ranked to see how well they meet the demands of the capital market and jobseekers. According to the latest survey, Danish companies are getting better at presenting reporting information while press sections are slightly worse compared to last year, and IR needs attention.

Danish companies are getting better at social media

To attract the right attention and making sure that companies owns the message in media, they need to serve journalist and other stakeholders with the right content. When it comes to stakeholder fulfilment regarding press sections, Danish companies has decreased slightly: it’s down 6% since last year, landing at 56%. But it’s not all bad. Part of owning the message is about being visible in social media, which Danish companies are quite good at. 71% of the ranked companies, compared to 59% last year, share their press releases on LinkedIn, a strategy that should be kept. As we have seen in our Careers Survey, jobseekers use various channels to build their understanding of companies and LinkedIn is the second most popular channel after the corporate website. Presenting information outside of the corporate website is part of attracting the right talent. Next step for the companies would be to also include their social media feeds on their websites to further increase transparency.

Press releases are provided, but user-friendliness needs a boost

Part of fulfilling the capital markets needs, especially but not limited to business journalists, consists of making sure that they can find the information that they want. A big part of that is making sure that press release archives has the wanted functionalities. While Danish companies perform on the same level as the rest of Europe when it comes to presenting press releases in HTML, functionalities are missing. Dividing press releases by month or quarter and allowing the user to filter by different categories are present in less than a third of the companies. Compared to the rest of Europe, this is a low number. Since press releases are an important communication channel for listed companies, this imposes a risk of important messages getting lost in the noise. Good thing that Danish companies outshine the rest of Europe when it comes to providing media contacts – the Danish average stakeholder fulfilment is 83% compared to 59% in Europe.

The top performer amongst the Danish companies is Danske Bank with a stakeholder fulfilment of 81%.

IR needs attention

Compared to the rest of Europe, Danish companies are good at two things: providing IR contacts and outlooks. While providing this information is good since it’s two of the most wanted pieces of information from stakeholders, IR leaves a lot to wish for with an average stakeholder fulfilment of 30%. For example, less than a fifth of the Danish companies their analysis of megatrends or an investor proposition. Both of which are important for stakeholders. Not only for the sake of transparency, but in making sure to build long lasting relationships with investors and facilitate analysis and trade decisions. While the Danes have quite a low average score in IR with 30%, the best performer in IR is Chr. Hansen with 59%.

Key figures are provided by most companies

IR information isn’t the only kind of information the Capital Market desires. Financial reports and presentations, amongst others, are also important and this is something Danish companies are aware of and becoming better at. On average, 60% of the stakeholder needs are fulfilled by Danish companies which is slightly better than the rest of Europe. Where the Danes outshine the rest of Europe is key figures, which is highly sought after according our Capital Market Survey. With a good average of 61%, Danish companies are above their European counterparts by 17%. In general, presenting a healthy amount of reporting information helps stakeholders analyse the listed companies in a proper way and can sway investment decisions.

With a clear lead, the top performer regarding reporting is Novozymes with an average of 82%.

Top performers in Denmark

This year’s top three features some new names in the Danish list of Webranking by Comprend. In third place we have Chr. Hansen who managed to climb up the podium from fourth to third place this year. The runner up is Novo Nordisk, increasing their placement from number ten last year to number two with a score of 62.5. In first place, same place as last year but with new name, we have Ørsted with a score of 62.7. This year’s climber in the Danish list is TDC, which saw an increase in score from 37.5 to 49.7.

See the full Danish results