LONDON - Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the leading Pan-European companies and professionals for Investor Relations (IR) as voted for in the 40th Thomson Reuters Extel Survey.

The 2013 Thomson Reuters Extel Survey ran from 26 March to 3 May 2013 and voting was primarily conducted online. The Survey reflects the contribution of over 15,000 professionals from over 2,200 buy-side firms, more than 2,500 analysts from 250 brokerage firms/research houses and nearly 1,000 of Europe’s largest quoted companies worldwide. All data, votes received and methodology applied were independently checked and verified by Deloitte.

The key winners in the 2013 Thomson Reuters Extel IR Survey are:

• Leading Pan-European Quoted Company for IR: Allianz SE
• Leading Pan-European IR Professional: Christian Becker-Hussong, Munich Re
• Leading Pan-European CFO: Jonathan Symonds, Novartis AG
• Leading Pan-European CEO: Chris Viehbacher, Sanofi
• Leading UK Company for IR: Vodafone Group plc

“Over the decade Thomson Reuters Extel has been measuring excellence in investor relations, the exceptional growth in voting and interest has reflected the increasing importance of IR in the investment community. It is clear companies are looking for transparent, independent benchmarks to help them evaluate the success of their IR programmes," commented Steve Kelly, managing director of Extel with Thomson Reuters.

The complete results cover 31 Pan-European industry sectors, all major European countries and include extensive trend analysis on the growing relevance of IR to the investment community.

To view the headline results visit www.extelsurveys.com (after 3.30pm BST today).

About Thomson Reuters Extel
Thomson Reuters Extel conducts market studies across all three sides of the investment community throughout Europe and Asia, delivering a comprehensive range of rankings, market trends and sentiment insights. Extel Europe is the largest study of its kind worldwide, with over 15,000 participants from 74 countries casting more than 670,000 individual votes. All rankings in Extel are based purely on weighted votes from the investment community. The scope and branding of Extel is widely recognized by brokerage firms, asset managers and corporates alike.

Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs approximately 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, go to thomsonreuters.com.