What 65 Investors Told Us About Corporate Access
Over the last several years, IR teams have been told the same thing from every direction: do more outreach, run more meetings, build a bigger pipeline. The premise underneath that advice – that access is scarce, and the answer is more activity – was true for a long time.
But the industry is changing, and we started to wonder if that advice was aging well.
So instead of speculating, we decided to ask. We commissioned Corbin Advisors to survey 65 buy-side professionals — investment managers, hedge funds, pension funds, private banks — representing more than $6.7 trillion in assets under management.
We wanted to know what IR teams could do to get better outcomes from corporate access, from the people on the other side of the table. The findings are now out in The State of Corporate Access in 2026.
Here's some of what they told us.
What the data tells us
- Volume is up, and filtering is aggressive. 80% of buy-side participants say there are now more corporate access opportunities than they can evaluate. Investors aren’t asking for more meetings – they're asking for a better signal on which ones are worth taking.
- 1-on-1s remain the gold standard. 58% rank 1-on-1 meetings as their most preferred format more than the next four formats combined. Group settings, conferences, and digital alternatives all rank well behind.
- Independent broker research now leads discovery. When we asked investors how they discover new companies, independent research came out on top — 67% named it, well ahead of conferences (56%), NDRs (44%), and broker recommendations (43%).
- Relevance and brevity get the meeting. 55% of investors said what gets them to take a meeting is relevance — a clear connection to the thesis they're already working on. A concise pitch (48%) and senior management access (38%) followed. Notably absent from the list: brand, frequency of contact, and length of relationship. None of it moves the needle if the outreach doesn't fit the work already in front of them.
- The mistakes investors flag are all fixable. The four most-cited IR mistakes are operational issues, not strategic ones. Every one of them is something an IR team can fix without leadership approval or new headcount.
What surprised us
When we asked investors how they discover new companies, proactive IR outreach came in near the bottom (15%). Independent research came in first. And by a wide margin at that. Investors are doing the discovery work themselves because the channels designed to help them aren't delivering what they need.
That's a signal that the corporate access playbook needs updating.
What’s in the report
Investors named the four mistakes IR teams make most often, and none of them require budget or headcount to fix. You'll see what those are, how common each one is, and what investors said they'd rather you do instead — in their own words.
You'll also see what actually earns a meeting: which formats investors value, what makes them say yes to a first conversation, and how the US, Canadian, and EMEA markets differ enough that a single global playbook works against you.
Every recommendation traces back to something 65 investors told us directly.
Read The State of Corporate Access in 2026 today.
