On November 21, NIRI DFW will host a lunch discussion in Fort Worth, about one of the most fiercely debated topics in IR – quarterly and annual financial guidance. Companies, especially those newly public, continually ask themselves questions such as:

• Why should we provide guidance?
• What metrics should we provide? And how much guidance is too much / too little guidance?
• How does guidance impact share price, valuation and other key metrics?
• Does guidance help limit volatility around earnings?
• If we are going to miss our guidance, should we alert the street?
• What are other companies in DFW doing?
• What are best practices? And are the “best practices” the right practices?
• Will we guide to quarter or annual performance?

As you know, analysts and stockholders want full transparency; they want detailed guidance to help predict company performance. Management would rather limit guidance to keep everyone (inside and out) focused on the long-term strategy – instead of on the short-term numbers. Especially in the often-volatile energy sector, the question of visibility is an important one: how can a company be expected to anticipate—and be accountable for—forces beyond its control?

At our lunch event, we will convene a roundtable of you and your peers, Fort Worth IR practitioners, to share their insights on this topic and discuss views and experiences related to providing guidance to Wall Street. As a backdrop and to inform our conversation, we’ll discuss the results of research recently completed by NIRI and The Abernathy MacGregor Group.

November 21, 2014
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Reata Restaurant
310 Houston St.
Fort Worth, TX 76102
Register Here