An open IR style is part of Genmab's success

Seven years ago, you could buy a Genmab share for DKK 57. Today, the price is over DKK 1,000 for one of the 61 million free-floating, undiluted shares. Behind this increase is Genmab’s blockbuster medical product, Darzalex®, partnered with Janssen Biotech, Inc., for the treatment of multiple myeloma. Also seven years ago, Jan van de Winkel took over as CEO. This period has seen a new style of communication and investor relations, explains Rachel Curtis Gravesen, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications at Genmab.

“We want to be open and transparent in our investor relations and communication activities. This openness and accessibility are important to CEO Jan van de Winkel and the rest of the leadership at Genmab and can be seen, for example, in our financial reporting, including the annual report and the annual general meeting,” says Rachel Curtis Gravesen. “First and foremost, we need to comply with all of our legal obligations and we want to do this in an open and transparent way, and be accessible to shareholders. Our partnership with VP INVESTOR SERVICES is important to us. The fact that they provide services which ensure the smooth running of our AGM, as well as, for example, administrating our shareholder register, means that we can concentrate on the content of our communication, knowing that important details are in place.”

Meet the CEO

Genmab has been listed on C20 – now C25 – for the last five years, and the company is among the top-five most traded shares on Nasdaq Copenhagen, with some 250,000 shares traded on a daily basis. At the end of 2017, Genmab employed around 250 people across its three locations and had a market cap of around DKK 63 billion. The ownership of Genmab is international, with only around 15 per cent of the shares being held by Danish institutional investors. A high percentage of Genmab’s institutional investors are from the US, while institutional investors from the UK, Switzerland, Germany and, of course, the Netherlands (Jan van de Winkel’s home country and where Genmab has research activities) also have a significant ownership share. Institutional investors such as ATP and equity funds such as Blackrock are also represented in the ownership, besides retail investors.

“We host an annual investor meeting in the Netherlands, which caters for private investors there, too. In Denmark, we undertake IR activities to service retail investors, and retail investors naturally also attend the AGM, where they have the opportunity to ask questions, but also to meet the Executive Management and members of the Board of Directors after the meeting. The AGM is an important date in our calendar and last year we had over 400 people attending,” says Rachel Curtis Gravesen.

Partnership in IR

While the AGM is chaired by a lawyer, a team from VP INVESTOR SERVICES assists with voting, proxy voting by foreign investors, the invitation process, the shareholder register, and e-mail contacts for investors, besides other formalities to ensure a well-run AGM.

“We work very closely with the team from VP INVESTOR SERVICES and having a good partnership with them is important to us. The team from VP INVESTOR SERVICES is very close to us in a day-to-day working relationship. We depend on them to take on a series of tasks in the running of our shareholder register and of the AGM. We know that we don’t have to worry, because they are a reliable partner. In terms of the AGM, we work with the team from VP months in advance to ensure that the process is in place in good time. It’s a good partnership,” says Rachel Curtis Gravesen from Genmab.

For more information:

 Contact Head of Issuer Services Flemming Merring.