Ever since it was first listed on the stock market (December 2001), Snam Rete Gas has been committed to building a corporate identity that would express the company’s goals and spirit of management in its forms of financial communication as well.
Since then we have been distinguished by transparent relationships with investors and the financial community by means of clear-cut communications of our objectives and our results so that investors and the financial markets can have a full understanding of all our value drivers.
During the year we held around twenty road shows, aimed at meeting with shareholders and institutional investors, in the leading European and North American financial markets. Overall, our management met with about 100 investors in one to one meetings, about 20 of which were held at the Snam Rete Gas headquarters in San Donato Milanese. Another 20 group meetings with several investors at a time were also held. Utilities Conferences also represented additional opportunities for exchanging views.
In particular, in 2009 the implementation of extraordinary operations, i.e. the acquisition of Stogit and Italgas and the increase in share capital in order to partly finance this acquisition, saw our management involved in special meetings both with the member banks of the underwriting consortium and with investors, in order to delineate the strategic consistency of the acquisition operation as well as consolidate and extend our shareholding structure as part of the operation to increase the share capital.
We also organise conference calls, in which usually around 50 persons participate, including the twenty-six analysts who cover the share, when we present financial results (preliminary annual, half-yearly and quarterly reports). We make the financial statement documents and quarterly/half-yearly reports available (in both Italian and English) immediately after their approval by the management bodies.
During the year, management took part in roundtable discussions, seminars and conferences on utilities, stock market and corporate governance issues. We prepare special presentations for each meeting, and these are then published in a specific section of the Snam Rete Gas website.
In 2009 we updated and extended the pages on the website in the Investor Relations area, and improved the graphics and charts, in order to be able to provide more effective information and improve site navigation.
Among the new features introduced are the online publication of “Financial Markets Review”, which offers a monthly analysis of the financial markets and the stock market trend in the utility sector, of the Snam Rete Gas share, and of the shares of other competitors. To this publication was added, starting in December, “News&Facts”, a quarterly publication aimed specifically at individual investors.
TREND OF THE SRG STOCK AND PRINCIPAL ETHICAL INDICATORS
In addition, we have devoted special attention to sustainability with further expansion and rationalisation of the area on socially-responsible investors, improving the information and links which an ethical investor, or an ethical ratings company analyst, might need in order to make an assessment of the company. Among the changes and improvements made, in addition to the stock market trends of the international indices, we have also added the trends of the principal sustainability indices to which the company belongs: the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, the FTSE4Good Europe Index and the FTSE4Good Global Index.
In its half-yearly review of September 2009, FTSE4Good (Financial Times Stock Exchange) Group confirmed the inclusion of Snam Rete Gas in the FTSE4Good sustainability index, for the eighth year in succession. The FTSE4Good index series evaluates our results in attaining sustainable economic development standards on a world level.
In December 2009 Snam Rete Gas was included in ECPI Ethical Index Global, and we also received confirmation of inclusion in the other two indices, ECPI Ethical Index Euro and ECPI Ethical Index EMU, for which our share had been selected in 2008. The ECPI Ethical Index Global includes 300 companies with high market capitalisations, belonging to the international market and selected using the ECPI methodology. The other two indices both comprise 150 companies belonging to the European market (ECPI Ethical Index Euro) and to the Economic and Monetary Union (ECPI Ethical Index EMU). The new certification was conducted by ECPI, now part of Mittel S.p.A. and listed on the Milan stock exchange, which since 1997 has been a leading company in research, ratings and sustainability indices.
Since 2007 we have participated in the assessment of the Carbon Disclosure Project, one of the most important independent organisations engaged in monitoring the position of major international companies on the issue of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
We have been part of the Ethibel Investment Register and Sustainability Indices since 2005. Ethibel is a leading research organisation in Europe in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sector and sustainable development.
In addition, our commitment to sustainable development has recently been recognised by VIGEO, an environmental and social rating agency, which has found a significant improvement in our overall performance.