Telenor Xpress 4 - 2000

Investor relations

Providing financial information to almost 50,000 retail investors and more than 300 institutional investors is a big job. But for the six people who are Telenor's official link to financial markets in Oslo, New York and London, it's all in a day's work.

"Our main responsibility is to attract investor interest by focusing on Telenor's growth potential," says Erling Thune, Telenor's director of investor relations. "To do that, we must distribute timely and accurate information to the markets, investors and analysts."

Telenor's investor relations department has had a strong start. The IR team has successfully educated Telenor employees about the company's public offering, prepared and distributed key financial data, and developed an interactive web site http://www.telenor.no/investor/ providing both archival and real time data to institutional and retail investors alike.

According to Thune, Telenor's IPO was the largest in Norway's history, raising a record USD 1.7 billion in equity. Considering that Telenor went public at a time when market conditions for the telecom sector have not been ideal, Telenor's IPO has been a success.

Over the next year, the IR team will participate in domestic and international road shows, organise investor meetings and continue to provide key financial information. "The success of an effective investor relations programme shouldn't be measured by small day-to-day fluctuations in the share price, but on building trust in the market to ensure positive long-term performance," Thune says.



Text by: Alexander Wardwell