Instinet has launched a Web-based platform, called Meet the Street, that lets companies connect directly with institutional investors.
Instinet says that, unlike the traditional management access model, where sell-side firms manually coordinate investor meetings for corporate management teams, Meet the Street directly empowers the investor relations officers and buy-side portfolio managers and analysts.
With the online platform, IROs are able to schedule non-deal roadshows with targeted investors who have previously expressed interest in their companies.
The Nomura unit hopes its service will plug the gap left by sell-side analysts, who have traditionally set up meetings between firms they research and investors. The number of analysts employed by Wall Street giants has dwindled in recent years following a crack-down on conflict of interests that saw them accused of offering positive research on firms to help boost their employers' investment banking business.
Meet the Street will be run by co-presidents Michael Dolan and Dan Dykens. Dolan joined Instinet in 2000 and has managed both the US independent third-party research and sales efforts at the firm. Dykens previously spent 10 years working on the buy-side as a portfolio manager and trader, and acted as CEO of Norbury Financial Systems.
"We've been developing the Meet the Street platform for the past 15 months, and the concept has been met with great enthusiasm by both investors and corporates. We are actively building the investor side of the network, and as we reach a critical mass of liquidity in various cities we will open those markets to the corporate channel for non-deal roadshows," say Dolan and Dykens in a joint statement.