Around 450 Investor Relations (IR) professionals gathered together on Tuesday night to attend the IR Society’s Best Practice Awards dinner at the Pavilion at the Tower of London, hosted by Michael Portillo, former Conservative Party politician and Cabinet Minister.

"With the increased focus on stewardship, and a year of choppy markets, it has been even more important to deliver clear and relevant investor communications," said John Dawson, chairman of the IR Society, who opened the evening.

Two sets of awards were presented—the winners of the nominated awards were determined by a panel of judges while the voted awards were determined by IR Society members, brokers and fund managers.

Go-Ahead Group, proving their continuous excellent work, won the award for Best corporate website in the FTSE 250 category for the forth year in the nominated category. Both Xstrata and BASF won two awards too—the former has excelled in communication of corporate responsibility while the latter has utilized social media tools the best.

Raghnall Craighead won The IR Society Fellowship Award for significant contribution to the development of the IR profession. In the category of voted awards, Kingfisher dazzled the ceremony collecting three awards: Best communication of investment proposition, Best overall company IR and Best investor relations officer for its head of IR Sarah Levy.
 
Full list of award winners

Nominated Awards

Best communication of strategy, performance and KPIs in the annual report - Lloyds Banking Group

Best communication of governance and risk in the annual report - African Barrick Gold

Best communication of corporate responsibility in the annual report - Xstrata

Best use of social media tools to support investor relations communications - BASF SE

Most effective use of innovative online technology within a corporate website - Centrica

Best corporate website, FTSE 100 - British Land

Best corporate website, FTSE 250 - Go-Ahead Group

Best corporate website, Small Cap & AIM - Trifast

Best corporate website, International - Arcelor Mittal

Most effective overall Annual Report (printed and online), FTSE 100 - Xstrata

Most effective overall Annual Report (printed and online), FTSE 250 - Telecity Group

Most effective overall Annual Report (printed and online), Small Cap & AIM - Costain Group

Most effective overall Annual Report (printed and online), International - BASF SE

The IR Society Fellowship Award for significant contribution to the development of the investor relations profession - Raghnall Craighead



Voted Awards


Best communication of  investment proposition - Kingfisher

Most improved IR - Halfords

Best newcomer to IR Greg Feehely - ASOS

Best investor relations officer Sarah Levy - Kingfisher

Best overall company IR - Kingfisher