MAY 2008
ISSUE 189
A Cross Border publication
ASIA-PACIFIC
NEW-AGE
IR
A Brazilian-born, US-educated, UK-based IRO
THE CAPITAL OF QATAR
SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS
UNPREDICTED ACTIVISM
ETHICAL MATTERS
Inside the world of Doha’s 42 listed companies page 30
Getting to the bottom of SWFs as they flood into listed companies page 35
AGMs prove to be ideal stomping ground for activist investors page 50
Ecclesiastical fund marries old-fashioned value to SRI page 53
Profile
‘We don’t ask anyone to smoke. We just hope that if people are going to smoke, they will choose Lucky Strike rather than Marlboro’ 20
CorpComms February 2006
Profile
BAT’s press relations manager David Betteridge believes in honesty, not smoke screens, as Andrew Cave finds out
Not all smoke and mirrors
Photography: www.charlesshearn.com
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negative story is still a story, and British American Tobacco (BAT) press relations manager David Betteridge knows what it’s like to be on the end of one. ‘When I was group media relations manager for Eastern Electricity, the ‘fat cat’ issue for chief executives of privatised utilities was at its height and everything they did was under the microscope,’ he recalls. ‘I remember taking a call from the News of the World. It wanted to talk to the chief executive and I said he was on holiday. I know, said the reporter. I’m at his hotel and he’s in the room next door. I don’t want to go into the details now but it was the next day’s splash. It was one of those situations where I could do absolutely nothing.’ Normally, however, Betteridge believes there is plenty companies can do to defend their reputations when there are hot issues to handle. ‘This job is more interesting because of its controversial nature,’ he says. ‘I really wouldn’t want to work for an organisation that didn’t do anything terribly interesting.’ He doesn’t smoke himself but adds, ‘I really don’t have an issue with it. We don’t ask anyone to smoke. We just hope that if people are going to smoke they will choose Lucky Strike rather than Marlboro.’ Betteridge, 38, worked as a reporter on the Evening Gazette in Colchester and a small public relations agency before joining Eastern, followed by BAT in 2000. ‘BAT was the only FTSE 100 company without a proper press office,’ he says. ‘The tobacco industry was hardly open with its communications – ‘no
comment’ was usually the most anyone would get. The old answer would have been to go away and talk to the lawyers.’ Now, Betteridge says media audits show that journalists like dealing with BAT and find it open and honest – something that could hardly be said for some of the reporters who attended a London press conference last year to unveil snus, a smokeless tobacco that the user places under the top lip. ‘It’s illegal to sell it in the UK,’ explains Betteridge. ‘But we had to show people what it was. We left all the tins of snus out but asked the journalists not to take them. Needless to say, by the time the presentation had finished, every single tin had gone.’ The South African launch proved even livelier, with one journalist apparently asking whether using the product could inhibit oral sex. ‘Yes, I’m aware of the questions that were asked, but I’m not going to go into details,’ Betteridge says coyly. Maybe it’s another Eastern Electricity moment. �
February 2006 CorpComms
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Profile
Helen Dunne talks to the young and dynamic head of corporate communications at online bank Egg
Egg-citing at the W
hen Emma Byrne, director of corporate communications at online bank Egg, read the thousandth headline containing the word ‘cracking’, she sent a bottle of Champagne to the hapless reporter. Five years into the job, Byrne, 35, has scrambled her way through every possible Egg-related pun but, with typical good humour, remains amused by the game. ‘The name got us talked about and symbolises our fresh approach to banking,’ she explains. Headhunted from Weber Shandwick five years ago, Byrne was excited by the prospect of Egg. ‘The obfuscation and lack of transparency in the UK banking market is outrageous,’ she says. ‘It can be made so much easier. The prospect of helping that process won me over.’ Egg, which is 79 percent owned by Prudential, launched with a credit card offering 0 percent interest on purchases and balance transfers. It was revolutionary. Today 83 providers offer similar deals. ‘It was quite difficult to explain initially,’ she admits. A series of groundbreaking humorous TV adverts
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CorpComms August/September 2005
top
helped; some even assumed cult status among students. Egg is passionate about educating customers on improving their financial circumstances, working closely with consumer groups and the influential Treasury Select Committee. It was the bank’s evidence to the committee that precipitated a change in how credit card companies disclose their charges. Byrne has always enjoyed championing underdogs. More than ten years ago, she persuaded businesses to invest in trouble-torn Belfast; later she took on former client Ikea ‘because it meant everybody could afford a stylish home.’ Today Egg has more than 3 mn customers, and Byrne and her five-man team have won almost every award available. Shortly after joining, she fired Egg’s external agencies, earning the sobriquet ‘Bin ‘em Byrne’. ‘My view is that I won’t hire somebody to answer the phone and pass a message on to the chief executive,’ she explains. ‘We all need to understand the business inside out, and represent that to the media. An external PR can rarely get that close and keep up with the pace of change.’ Byrne – a member of the executive committee, just below board level – reports directly to CEO Paul Gratton. Rumours persist that Prudential will sell Egg. ‘About 2,500 employees work for us; we have to be open and frank with them and as reassuring as possible, as well as working within the reality of City regulations,’ Byrne says. ‘The last 18 months have been challenging.’ And egg-citing! � helen@corpcommsmagazine.com
Profile
‘The obfuscation and lack of transparency in the UK banking market is outrageous. It can be made so much easier’ August/September 2005 CorpComms
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Photography: www.charlesshearn.com
Profile
Go ahead,
take the train
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CorpComms March 2007
Profile
Helen Dunne meets Jim Boyd, director of corporate affairs at transport group Go-Ahead
U
sually if a chap tells you he has something of interest in his pocket, it is best to make a quick getaway. But when the gentleman in question is Jim Boyd, director of corporate affairs at transport operator Go-Ahead, you can relax. Boyd, 42, carries the company’s crisis management booklet in his pocket at all times. The booklet is a detailed list of potential crises, ranging from minor derailments to major crashes or terrorist attacks, and the appropriate responses from the parent group and its operating companies. There are five different levels, of which red is the most serious, and each response is incredibly detailed. ‘It is our way of identifying risk,’ explains Boyd. ‘There is a series of scenarios and details of how senior management should respond.’ Many crises can be handled by the individual operating companies, which include Oxford Bus Company, the Go West bus service, Southern and Southeastern rail services, Meteor Parking and Aviance UK, which employs almost 5,000 ground staff at 17 airports. ‘The booklet explains at what point they should get in touch with our group,’ says Boyd. ‘We have people working in completely different sectors but there is a uniform response. We have worked through all the possible scenarios and provided a cohesive and high-quality response to each situation.’
The road to risk management Thankfully for Boyd and Go-Ahead, the group has not experienced a red alert since the booklet was produced. But a bus owned by the company was blown up by an IRA terrorist on Aldwych, close to Waterloo Bridge, in February 1996. And Boyd is mindful of the recent National Express coach disaster in which two people died and many others were injured. He concedes there is a ‘complex interaction’ between the company and the 800 mn passenger journeys undertaken every year. ‘Since I joined two years ago, there have been some medium crises – events that can have a reputational impact – but there has not been a major incident with multiple fatalities, for which I am extremely grateful,’ Boyd says. ‘Even so, we are always conscious that vehicles are much more powerful than the individuals who drive them and there are always issues outside our control, such as weather conditions.’ Chief executive Keith Ludeman instigated the crisis management booklet shortly after he joined Go-Ahead. ‘It is a focused and structured approach to crisis management,’ Boyd explains. It was compiled with the aid of Mike Seymour,
international director for crisis and issues management at Edelman, who audited all potential risks Go-Ahead faced. ‘We assigned weights to current concerns, and mapped out the risks associated with them,’ Boyd continues. ‘We found different sectors within the group had different perceptions of risk. We looked at low risk and high-risk scenarios and discussed which qualified as crises.’ In short, if the 37 bus, a 24-hour service between Peckham and Putney, is running 40 minutes late, it might be a disaster for granny waiting in the pouring rain at the bus stop, but it is not a crisis for the company. There is certainly a reputational risk, however. ‘If a bus is running five minutes late, the only way to deal with it is by explaining why to the passenger,’ says Boyd. ‘All we can do is apologise hugely.’ While Go-Ahead employs 25,000 people, the head office at Croydon in Surrey has a staff of just three. ‘The group’s philosophy is that local transport is best delivered locally,’ says Boyd. ‘They are local brands and should communicate directly with passengers. We are here to give support, in both a strategic and consultancy capacity, and our role is to make sure we transfer best practice across the group.’ For example, the managing directors of the operating companies are frequently ‘on the platform or the train or at the bus stop’ to meet passengers. ‘They have to think like a passenger,’ explains Boyd. ‘We put in a huge amount of work engaging with members of staff about the brand and what it seeks to do.’ The group also spends time with local MPs, councillors and community groups discussing transport requirements
March 2007
CorpComms
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Profile
uSwitch
in time saves...
Helen Dunne meets Christina Rebollo, head of PR at uSwitch, and learns about passion and campaigning media
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CorpComms November 2007
where I could say what I wanted – call a spade a spade, if necessary – to the benefit of consumers. The job at uSwitch offered me the chance to do the kind of PR very few people are able to do.’
Photography: www.charlesshearn.com
hristina Rebollo is no stranger to switching. Born in Madrid, the 30-year-old head of PR at price comparison website uSwitch spent her early life in a succession of different countries. ‘My father worked for IBM on some of the first internet projects, and we moved every three to four years,’ Rebollo explains. ‘But I moved to the UK 12 years ago to attend London University, and I’ve been here ever since.’ When Rebollo graduated with her degree in computing (to please her father) and French (to satisfy her love of literature), she knew what she didn’t want to do – but not what she did. Her first job was in the marketing department of accountancy giant Deloitte, before joining the credit cards business at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). ‘I realised what I liked most about my job at Deloitte was PR,’ Rebollo recalls. ‘RBS was a fantastic opportunity because it was purely PR, and the credit cards business is huge. We used to say that it was bigger than Boots and McDonald’s.’ Such was its importance within the banking group that the cards business had its own autonomous PR team and agency. ‘We were allowed to be creative,’ says Rebollo. ‘But you also spend about 60 percent of your time within a big bank just fighting fires. There are dozens of customer complaints every week that the media ring up about; you are always defending and reacting. It is true crisis management.’ Although Rebollo stayed with RBS for more than four years, she began to feel uncomfortable about the way high street banks operate. ‘At the time there was a lot of public discussion about consumer over-indebtedness and responsible lending,’ she explains. ‘RBS is an incredible organisation that treats staff extremely well, but banks are there to generate as much profit as possible from customers. I needed to do something different
Really saying something Rebollo joined in 2005, when uSwitch was already well known for its energy price comparison site and was extending its service into other consumer products, such as personal finance and home phone and broadband offerings. She was its first in-house PR person and, as well as boosting its press coverage and profile, she had to build a team, put processes and systems in place, generate press coverage and achieve her very ambitious targets. ‘Coming from an organisation like RBS, it was like chalk and cheese,’ recalls Rebollo. ‘I wanted uSwitch to have the largest share of voice as an independent commentator in each of the industries where we operated. Today, in energy our closest rival is Ofcom, which is a regulator, and we have raised our game in personal finance, beating our nearest rival, Moneysupermarket.com, for the past two years.’ Rebollo now has a team of five – ‘all
Profile
‘It’s not enough just to get press coverage and comments in the newspaper; PR has to be there to support the business’
November 2007
CorpComms
21
Profile
In-jean-ious Rosie Murray-West meets Ros Freeborn, head of communications at Jeans for Genes, and learns about her quest to ‘denimise’ the world
F
or Ros Freeborn, every day is dress-down Friday; she is the head of communications at Jeans for Genes, the charity that raises money for genetic disease research by organising the ultimate ‘mufti day’. As we speak, just before the annual Jeans for Genes day on October 5, Freeborn’s life is becoming increasingly manic. ‘It is like being a sheepdog,’ she says. ‘My job is to keep everything going in the same direction. There are only nine of us here, with so much to do.’ Jeans for Genes is a collaboration between four genetic disease charities, including Great Ormond Street Hospital, and last year it raised £3 mn for research and help for affected families. This year, Freeborn explains, she is encouraging the public to ‘get denimised’ and pay a couple of pounds for the privilege of wearing jeans to work. She has been working on a massive marketing campaign, and has spent the week doing trial jeans fittings on a number of somewhat unresponsive subjects. ‘We are putting jeans on iconic statues around the country to advertise the day,’ she explains, because this provides visual images that are easy to sell to newspapers, magazines and even radio stations. This year, the statue of the trader in London’s Walbrook Street will be sporting a natty pair of jeans held up by braces, while in Coventry, the famously naked Lady Godiva will be clothed for the first time in a long denim cloak. ‘We have to keep the message very simple, but it needs to be refreshed every year,’ Freeborn says. ‘It is looking good for this year. These things are visually quite quirky.’ For Jeans for Genes, the communications and marketing challenge is clear. The charity must compete with other wellknown causes for money and attention from schools and workplaces. Genetic diseases are harder to explain than other diseases, such as cancer, and yet they are surprisingly common. ‘There is a huge spectrum of genetic disease, everything from a squint or a cleft lip to something like cystic fibrosis, for which there is no known cure,’ points out Freeborn. ‘It is very
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CorpComms October 2007
hard to put the message across about every facet of genetic disease, and yet it affects one in every 33 babies.’
Target practice Part of the marketing strategy is to target specific employees in workplaces around the country. ‘There are always those who make sure the collecting tin is taken round and the money collected,’ Freeborn explains. The charity sends out packs to these people in August to explain the theme of the next Jeans for Genes day, and takes adverts in national newspapers and workplace magazines running up to the day. ‘We ring up and ask whether they have any spare space to slot in our pre-prepared advertisements,’ Freeborn says. ‘That has been very successful.’ The charity’s roots are in the nation’s schools, however, and this is still a massive part of its marketing. Jeans for Genes started over a decade ago when a school in the West Country held a dress-down day to raise funds for a child with a genetic disorder, and the charity has grown from there. ‘Eighty percent of schools are aware of Jeans for Genes, and it is incredibly popular with teachers,’ Freeborn says. This is hardly surprising: unlike some other charitable days, which can be about throwing custard pies at staff, Jeans for Genes has a serious educational
Profile
‘Jeans for Genes is incredibly popular with teachers’
Pho to w w gr aph w. c y har : les s
hea
r n.c
om
October 2007
CorpComms
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In Camden
Town
Helen Dunne meets Ashley Wilcox, head of corporate communications at Camden Council, and learns how to connect with a diverse stakeholder group on a shoestring Photography: www.charlesshearn.com 20
www.corpcommsmagazine.co.uk
September 2008
Profile
C
amden, the north London borough that spans the elegance of Primrose Hill, bustling Covent Garden to the grittiness of the infamous Somers Town estate, has had more than its share of headlines in recent months. There have been the bizarre antics of resident Amy Winehouse, the fire at the famous market and the tragic stories of teenage knife attacks, but for the borough’s 220,000 residents, Ashley Wilcox is the man making sure they are informed. Wilcox is corporate communications manager for Camden, working with a team of 40, to inform and educate the local population about the services offered by their local borough. ‘It is a difficult challenge,’ says Wilcox. ‘We provide between 600 and 700 different services and we try to ensure that resident are aware of these. There is no big sell. We just tell them that these are great services and they can make their lives easier. But the communications budget is very low. We have just 19p per week per resident, or 0.3 per cent of the council budget.’ Shortly after Wilcox joined in 2005, a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives unseated the incumbent Labour council, who had held power for 36 years, promising to take politics out of local government. It signalled the end of council newspaper Camden Living, which was filled with quotes from local politicians, and gave Wilcox a blank canvas to start again – without any interference from councillors. He produced a business case to justify the publication of another newspaper, Your Camden, which instead focusses on the borough’s services and residents’ real life experiences. When concerns about knife crime rose, for example, the newspaper carried a story of a former violent petty criminal who had turned his life around.
CorpComms
R e a di ng g o od n e ws
‘We do spend a lot of time researching and evaluating our work,’ says Wilcox. ‘We distribute the magazine to 95,000 homes in the borough and to pick up points, such as Sainsbury’s, libraries and community centres. Our surveys show that 90,000 residents read our newspaper, which is much higher than the readership of the local newspapers.’ Keeping residents educated has a huge impact on their satisfaction levels. In the year to 2005, 68 per cent of residents perceived Camden Council to be doing a good job. Today, the level is nearer to 76 per cent against a London borough average of 67 per cent. But Wilcox’s approach is about more than just a newspaper. He initiated an A-Z Handy Guide to council services, which costs a hefty 33p per copy to produce. When residents were polled on the cost and whether they viewed the publication as valuable, 90 per cent said yes. ‘We are very strategic in our approach,’ explains Wilcox. ‘We have a three year strategy and service plan and everything we do works to this, otherwise we would all go off and do lots of different things. Our strategy is aligned to the corporate plan. Our key objective is to keep residents informed about services and to increase their understanding of what we do.’ The situation is complicated by the demographics of Camden, which is recognised as having the largest social deprivation gap of any London borough. Residents speak a total of 108 different languages. ‘It is a transient population and very diverse. We have a very big Somali and
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Profile IR magazine
Eurotech
gets tough
Fay Sanders grills Andrea Barbaro on his plans for transforming Eurotech into a multi-billon-dollar company
36 July 2009
pass this glass ceiling quickly to reach a critical mass and be in the top 10,’ he explains. Now Barbaro’s task is to lead the company through a phase of organic growth, despite the tough market conditions. ‘I would be lying if I said we’re not having a few problems,’ he admits. ‘But falling stock price is a reflection of the general situation and not symptomatic of any company-specific issue.’
Sticking to the plan The crisis has made little difference to Eurotech’s organic growth strategy, insists the IRO, who is also in charge of strategic planning. ‘We’re going to focus on transport, medical and defense, which have government backing, rather than on industrial or commercial, which we’ve previously been strong in,’ says Barbaro, who stopped by IR magazine’s London offices en route to a site visit at a Cambridge subsidiary. Barbaro is surprisingly unfazed by the financial meltdown. ‘The embedded electronic market will become more consolidated,’ he says. ‘The bigger firms will get bigger and the smaller ones will get smaller or disappear. We’re lucky to be in the top 10 right now, so we should grow despite the crisis.’ He admits investors are more cautious, but says there are still plenty of good opportunities. ‘They’re just harder to identify,’ he maintains. ‘You need to
Photography: www.charlesshearn.com
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big challenge lies ahead for Andrea Barbaro. His appointment as IR officer at Eurotech just under a year ago marked a brand-new approach to IR at this burgeoning Italian tech company. Following the firm’s listing in 2005, former IRO Massimo Mauri led a fiercely acquisitive campaign across Europe, Asia and the US, which Barbaro describes as a tricky, yet necessary, process. ‘There’s a gap between the majority of firms in our market that are worth up to €40 mn ($56 mn), and the few firms that are worth €100 mn and above. It was important to
IR magazine Profile
spend more time with investors to convince them to invest.’ The task of persuading investors to commit to Eurotech is made easier by the firm’s focus on the business-to-business (rather than business-to-consumer) market, as well as the fact that it makes critical electronic components for MRI machines and wireless internet systems for buses and trains, the latter being considered a financially sound area. ‘A specific part of the Obama plan is dedicated to improving access to wireless broadband,’ Barbaro points out.
expanding horizons Barbaro is keen to reach investors on the other side of the Atlantic, as 45 percent of the company’s revenues are generated in the US. ‘Investors are putting money into our US-based peers, so they could also put some in Eurotech – but they need to know our company before they can do that,’ he adds. Quite how he intends to get a slice of US capital is still uncertain. ‘We have to work out which are the most interesting investors,’ he notes. ‘Those already investing in our competitors will be easier to approach.’ Eurotech stands apart from its domestic counterparts with its 78 percent free float, unusually high for an Italian company. ‘It was a matter of having an IPO that was a bit different from the Italian standard and closer to the UK or US model,’ explains Barbaro. July 2009 37
AUGUST 2005 � ISSUE 156
Year of the poison pill Japanese IR transforms How they do it at Tesco Britain’s premier retailer reveals all Climate change the bottom line
EUROPEAN EDITION
Best of the Brits The UK’s IR champions