The Content of COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Regulatory News Communications by UK Main Market Listed Firms

Purpose - To describe the broad categories and characteristics of information contained in COVID-19 pandemic-related corporate communications made as regulatory news by UK firms during the first half year of 2020, to describe the regulatory environment in which they took place, and to develop research questions that arise from these descriptions.

Design/Methodology/Approach - Uses an empirical, descriptive, approach to develop underlying characterisations of financial communications. Uses inductive reasoning to move from the characterisations to potentially interesting research questions.

Findings - We identify patterns of corporate communications concerning financial position (including) corporate debt negotiations, and corporate actions (including furloughing employees, cutting costs in general, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and initiatives, cutting executive compensation, corporate distributions, and forecasting future performance). Issues raised by these communications suggest possible future research on the impact of these communications on stock prices and stock market participants in general, corporate social responsibility behaviour, statements and initiatives and their underlying rationale, and contracting between firms and lenders.

Originality/Value - We provide a novel description of UK corporate communications during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic period and propose a related research agenda in the area of regulatory news disclosures.