Influence of the growing ETF industry on active investor relations work62 Influence of the ETF industry on IR work it is not impossible and even likely depending on the composition of the company and the devel opment of its shareholder structure that active investor contact will decrease as the trend of pas sive investors will further increase Further task areas Contact to analysts will remain important as they are multipliers as described above in chapter 3 2 2 which are still needed Expert interview 2 2021 see annex 3 This opinion is also held by the majority of participants in the survey who assume that the ETF industry has little to no influence on the contact to analyst In addition little noticeable influence is also expected in the IR activities regarding road shows participation in conferences and presenta tion of the company as well as events for private shareholders This can be directly linked to the active investor targeting the relevance of which as explained above will most likely not decrease Moreover the passive investment industry will have virtually no influence on the area of report ing which is also reflected by the majority 63 of respondents Although this task area in partic ular is undergoing a change this cannot be linked to and has therefore not been triggered by the passive investment industry Annual reports and other financial statements are getting more and more standardized Financial figures are auto matically recorded also due to ESEF The annual report as one of the main marketing instruments to represent the company and to stand out against the competition will disappear Expert interview 3 2021 see annex 3 Its main function will not be a marketing but rather a reporting instrument where the fulfillment of reporting standards is the key focus Many companies for example do not print their annual reports any longer also for envi ronmental reasons Due to the development trend towards more standardization where machines will be able to interpret and evaluate the fig ures themselves specialists will still be needed for certain tasks related to the reporting such as to pour the correct figures into the systems but this does not have to be done exclusively by IR Expert interview 1 2021 see annex 3 Reporting remains important but will be more automated It can be assumed that the presentation of the company in databases will be more noticeably influenced by the rise of the passive investment industry More than half 55 of the respondents expect a noticeable to considerable influence in this IR task area A clean preparation and good presentation of company data in databases such as Bloomberg or Refinitiv will remain an import ant focus for IR The importance will most likely even increase as these databases are not only used by active portfolio managers analysts and numerous investors but also serve as a source base for indices rankings and ETF providers to select companies Due to the increasing automa tion especially in the trading area and the rising application of AI a clean presentation of company data is therefore of enormous relevance These data must be regularly maintained and updated which could become an important main focus of IR in the future It can also be assumed that the area of corpo rate governance will be noticeably impacted by the passive sector This also reflects the assess ment of around two thirds 67 of the IR experts surveyed Due to the fact that proxy advisors who will become even more important with the increase of passive investors see above also issue corporate governance guidelines for compa nies it will be even more important for companies to act compliantly and to follow those guidelines in the future In general not only regarding the passive investment industry knowledge of legal regulations and laws as well as on ESG and corpo rate governance will be an indispensable key skill for IR professionals

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