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Checklist
Investor relations function setup before listing
Use this checklist before listing to turn IPO communications into an investor relations function with named owners, approved materials and tested publication controls. It builds on reporting readiness and roadshow preparation; it is educational only, not investment, legal, tax or accounting advice, and applicable rules differ by jurisdiction and venue and change over time.
Appoint the team and define its operating mandate 0 / 6
Usually owned by: CFO, supported by the head of investor relations
- Document who owns investor enquiries, analyst engagement, publication coordination and escalation when the lead is unavailable.
- Separate the responsibilities of investor relations, finance, legal, the company secretary and corporate communications, including who drafts, verifies, approves and publishes.
- Specify responsibility for website hosting, distribution, webcasts, contact management and monitoring without transferring issuer approval authority to suppliers.
- Give executives and supporting staff a practical route for referring questions they cannot answer from approved public information.
- Bring together the published equity story, metric definitions, business descriptions and approved answers, with a source and owner for each statement.
- Track unanswered enquiries, recurring questions, publication readiness and management time rather than using share-price movements as the sole measure of the function.
Establish disclosure and engagement controls 0 / 6
Usually owned by: General counsel or company secretary, with the CFO and investor relations lead
- Ask counsel to identify the relevant disclosure, filing, website and recordkeeping requirements and document when each becomes applicable; do not import another market's timetable.
- Assign decision-makers, deputies and an evidence log so investor relations does not make disclosure decisions alone. In the EU, ESMA's guidance addresses how analyst expectations can inform an inside-information assessment. ([ESMA guidance](https://www.esma.europa.eu/publications-data/questions-answers/1148))
- Cover announcements, presentations, website updates, emails, interviews and social posts, with version control and explicit publication authority.
- Require an approved public-information pack, clear attendance responsibilities and a meeting note; route requests for unpublished performance information to the disclosure decision-makers.
- Explain which contacts the issuer limits under its own policy, distinguish those limits from applicable legal requirements, and keep an urgent escalation route available throughout.
- Name the monitoring owner, decision-makers and approved holding responses without assuming that either silence or a public response is always appropriate.
Build and test the investor relations website 0 / 6
Usually owned by: Investor relations lead, supported by IT, corporate communications and legal
- Make results, announcements, filings, presentations, governance information, events and investor contacts easy to find, while distinguishing required content from optional material.
- Prevent draft materials from becoming public through shared credentials, unprotected preview links or supplier action before issuer approval.
- Have legal confirm the applicable dissemination route and sequence; do not assume that posting a document on the website completes the issuer's obligations.
- Distinguish current materials from historical statements, preserve publication evidence and avoid silently replacing previously published information.
- Check navigation, document downloads, accessible formats, webcast registration, replay access and investor contact forms rather than approving screenshots alone.
- Confirm backup contacts, recovery access and alternative publication arrangements so a technical problem does not leave the release team improvising.
Approve the disclosure calendar and guidance policy 0 / 6
Usually owned by: CFO and financial reporting lead, with investor relations and legal
- Connect reporting events, filings, governance events and investor activities to their preparation dependencies rather than committing publicly before finance confirms feasibility.
- Assign an owner and change-approval process to each category, and include time zones in operational schedules to prevent conflicting instructions.
- Document the rationale, metrics, reporting perimeter, assumptions and forecast support; treat the decision as issuer-specific rather than an automatic consequence of listing.
- Record each public outlook statement, its publication source, underlying assumptions, approval and current status so presentations and answers do not accidentally revive outdated guidance.
- Connect trading information and forecast changes to a documented review process without assuming the next scheduled results announcement is the appropriate publication point.
- Limit any factual checks to an approved scope based on public information, prohibit private confirmation of unpublished forecasts and log sensitive questions for escalation.
Create the analyst and investor intelligence system 0 / 6
Usually owned by: Investor relations lead, supported by legal and the privacy lead
- Give the team a maintained working record while having the relevant specialists confirm applicable data-handling requirements.
- Confirm permitted use, contact provenance and outstanding follow-ups rather than assuming adviser records can be copied into the issuer's database without review.
- Label each data source and its limitations; a meeting, expression of interest or allocation record should not be presented as proof of a current holding.
- Track contacts, published research, model versions and permissions while keeping analyst views distinct from issuer-approved statements.
- Record source, freshness, reporting period, metric definition and exclusions so finance can identify incompatible estimates before using an aggregate in internal analysis.
- Capture questions, approved materials used, commitments and escalation needs; share recurring concerns with management without promising selective updates.
Rehearse the first results day and approve readiness 0 / 6
Usually owned by: CFO and investor relations lead, supported by financial reporting, legal and IT
- Agree the reporting perimeter, comparative information, required review or audit work and governance approvals before announcing event arrangements.
- Tie figures, metric definitions, reconciliations and narrative across the release, presentation, script, filings and website materials to approved reporting sources.
- Practise difficult questions on cash, performance drivers, outlook and departures from the IPO narrative, including how to decline requests for unpublished information.
- Test approved file handoffs, publication sequence, access links, audio, question moderation, recording and a failed-channel scenario using clearly marked rehearsal materials.
- Name the person authorised to release each item, the evidence needed to proceed, the stop conditions and the response to an incorrect file or disrupted call.
- Require the CFO and relevant workstream owners to accept the team, controls and tested runbook, then assign archive checks, enquiry handling, analyst-model monitoring and the results-day debrief.