Industry Conferences

Buy side money managers and analysts are always seeking insight on the companies currently in their portfolios or on their watch lists. They are looking for any information that would affirm or change their investment thesis. One of the venues where this occurs is an industry conference sponsored by a sell side investment bank. Here, corporate clients such as Intel or Altria will send their officers to speak to the buy side either in a presentation or meeting.

This is where the size or importance of the firm make an impact. In the beginning, the salesperson will invite all their interested clients to the conference. The buy side representative will indicate which corporates they wish to speak to in a group or 1-on-1 basis. This is contingent on the corporates' availability. Some of them will only speak in a presentation setting. Others will desire to have meetings.

Depending on the conference and the sponsoring firm, conferences may or may not be exclusive. So the firm may allow all buy side requests to be approved for attending the conference. Other times, attendance will be tightly controlled. However, for all conferences, meetings and activities (such as golf outings) with corporates are controlled and scheduled by the corporate access team. The meetings and activities are where having a good research salesperson can help a buy side firm. Obviously, for the giants such as Fidelity, S.A.C. Capital or Capital Group; their requests are given precedence. But for a firm on the border, having an advocate that can persuade management to give them a meeting is invaluable and would result in a better broker vote.