NEW YORK-Two California-based wireless industry companies, Boatracs Inc. and Ora Electronics, have joined several dozen other small-cap public corporations enrolled in the new “Seal of Best Practices in Investor Relations” program that begins officially next month.
Offered by the Investors Research Institute Inc., New York, an organization of individual investors, the seal indicates these companies have “pledged to promote superior standards of financial accessibility, scrutiny and disclosure, benefiting individual investors and shareholders,” IRI announced. Participation costs $680 per year.
“To meet the standards for scrutiny, (participating) companies have agreed to position [themselves] for professional (securities) analyst coverage or to enroll in [IRI’s] Public Analysis & Review program, which assigns an independent analyst to follow and report regularly on companies with little or no coverage,” IRI said.
The accessibility standards for the Seal of Best Practices program require companies to schedule at least one “pre-announced” conference call yearly that is open to individual investors via Webcasting, at least in a “listen-only” mode.
Webcast calls and presentations must be available for a minimum of 90 days and include full text transcripts, IRI said.
To meet disclosure standards, participating companies must make accessible to all classes of investors the “timely … issuance of corporate reports and press releases, a searchable corporate profile and, if not `fully reporting’ under regulatory guidelines, to fully `self-report’ in a central registry IRI is establishing. Information must be updated twice monthly for the registry.
“Companies also (must) agree to immediate disclosure of any change in distributed shares, dilutive events and insider buying or selling … and to provide archives of up to three years of press releases so investors may more easily determine the efficiency with which participating companies have met their announced corporate objectives,” IRI said.
Companies interested in learning more about the Seal of Best Practices program can view its Web site at: www.investorsresearch.org
