It gives me an immense pleasure to announce the holding of one day Investor Relations Seminar by South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE). Professional and academic literature is increasingly documenting the importance of investor relations for the public companies.
Nowadays, in the inevitable trend of globalisation and rapidly changing market scenarios, Investor Relation is becoming a crucial component of daily corporate operations.
Hence, this initiative taken by SAFE to promote the subject matter is highly commendable and appreciated. The role of IR involves creating higher awareness and better understanding of a Company through regular and sustained processes that end up as the measure of a Company's credibility and establishes the levels of confidence the investors and analysts have in the Company as an information resource. An effective IR programme helps to deliver a fair valuation for the company's equity, reduced funding costs and provide a resilient shareholder base.
The remit of investor relations is not only to create an awareness and understanding of your company amongst the investment community, it is also to help quoted companies gain access to capital and achieve liquidity in, and fair valuation for their shares. Today, the practice of IR has emerged as a full-fledged discipline just as investing, and has now become an important corporate function for many leading corporations in the World.
It is in this context that SAFE has launched a series of seminars on Investor Relations to educate and promote an environment of awareness amongst the major stakeholders of the stock markets. The purpose of this program is to develop an understanding of this most important corporate responsibility subject amongst the senior management cadre of the listed companies who are entrusted with the job of communicating with different stakeholders of their respective companies.
This seminar is the fourth program in the Investor Relations series which were rolled out during the last year. Such initiatives should be taken on regular basis and on large scale, as capacity building events such as these offers a great value in terms of learning. Once again, I would like to congratulate SAFE for organising this seminar and wish them all the success.