IR magazine hosts Toronto awards program

IR Magazine, a global trade publication for the investor relations sector, held its Canadian awards on Thursday night. It was hosted by the Globe and Mail at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto and about 400 people attended. Winners of the awards are picked by a survey of more than 250 investment professionals using samples from Thomson Financial and Equicom, as well as 100 retail investors in a survey conducted by PrecisionIR Group.

Among the winners were CN (in the big company category) and Draxis Health in the small-cap category. The full list of winners is available at IRMagazine.com.

John Stackhouse, editor of the Globe and Mail's Report on Business apparently had them rolling when he gave the golden gavel award to BCE.

'This IR department spent years keeping its stock price fixed at $28 a share, regardless of dividend increases. When a takeover battle erupted, and its stock shot up to $40, they hired bankers to prepare a defensive strategy to get the stock back to $28,' Stackhouse joked. 'In the end, when private equity came calling, IR was 'completely ignored by the CEO as he auctioned off the company from his kitchen.'

We guess this could be called insider humour.