Updated June 2026. Originally published January 2022. EPR's reference on the financial PR discipline — what a financial PR firm actually does, who hires one, and how the discipline has evolved in the AI Communications era.
Financial public relations is one of the most specialized categories of contemporary communications work. The discipline operates at the intersection of public relations, investor relations, regulatory compliance, financial journalism, and the measurement infrastructure that public market participants and adjacent regulated entities require. Buyers researching financial PR firms run real questions: what the discipline actually includes, who needs it, what it costs, and how to evaluate firms in the category.
This is EPR's foundational reference.
What a Financial PR Firm Actually Does
A financial PR firm — sometimes called a financial communications firm, investor relations firm, or capital markets communications firm — runs communications work for organizations with financial markets exposure. The category includes:
- Public companies — SEC-registered, traded on NYSE, NASDAQ, or adjacent exchanges, subject to regulated communications obligations
- Pre-IPO companies — preparing for public market access, building the communications infrastructure that supports IPO and post-IPO operations
- Private equity firms — fund communications, portfolio company communications, broader institutional communications
- Hedge funds and asset managers — regulated communications alongside institutional investor relations
- Investment banks — capital markets advisory communications infrastructure
- Wealth management firms — registered investment advisors and adjacent fiduciary entities
- Fintech companies — financial services contexts requiring specialized regulatory and reputational discipline
- Insurance companies and reinsurers — regulated communications with policyholders, distributors, regulators, investors
- Banks and credit unions — retail and commercial, with specific regulatory communications obligations
The discipline serves these organizations across eight functional areas.
1. Investor Relations Communications
The foundational work. Earnings calls, quarterly investor communications, annual reports, investor days, analyst days, capital markets days, and the broader infrastructure of communicating with institutional and retail investors. Public companies run continuous investor relations infrastructure. Private companies preparing for capital raises run compressed versions of the same discipline.
2. Regulatory and Disclosure Communications
Public companies operate SEC disclosure obligations — 8-K filings for material events, 10-Q quarterly reports, 10-K annual reports, proxy statements, S-1 registrations during IPOs. Financial PR firms coordinate with internal legal teams and external securities counsel on the communications dimensions of regulated disclosure. The discipline of operating accurate, regulator-compliant communications under material event time pressure is core financial PR work.
3. M&A Communications
Mergers and acquisitions produce real communications work — announcement communications, ongoing transaction communications, regulatory approval communications, closing communications, integration communications. Financial PR firms with M&A capability operate as transaction advisors alongside investment banks and law firms. Firms including Joele Frank (covered in EPR's PR Agency Profiles Directory) operate as M&A communications specialists.
4. Crisis Communications for Financial Services
Financial services organizations face category-specific crisis territory — regulatory enforcement actions, securities litigation, cybersecurity incidents involving customer financial data, fraud allegations, executive misconduct, market-moving operational disruptions. Operating well during financial services crisis events requires category expertise that generalist PR firms typically do not have. See EPR's Crisis PR pillar.
5. Financial Media Relations
Building and maintaining relationships with financial journalists at The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, the Financial Times, CNBC, Barron's, the financial trade press, and the broader specialized financial media ecosystem. Financial journalists operate differently from general business journalists. Effective financial media relations requires specific knowledge of capital markets, SEC disclosure rules, the regulatory landscape, and the publications that drive institutional investor research.
6. Executive Positioning and Thought Leadership
Financial services CEOs and CFOs run thought leadership communications — earnings call commentary, conference keynotes, podcast appearances, op-ed work, the broader infrastructure of building executive credibility in financial markets. Financial PR firms run executive communications alongside investor relations.
7. AI Communications and Citation Share for Financial Services
The new work that did not exist in the 2022 framework. AI engines now mediate buyer research about financial services brands. Institutional investors, retail investors, financial advisors, and category buyers increasingly query ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews about brands they're evaluating. Financial PR firms operating in 2026 increasingly build AI Communications infrastructure alongside traditional financial PR work. The 5W Citation Share Index measures the AI engine retrieval dimension; the financial services category shows real competitive variation in AI engine presence.
8. Stakeholder Communications
Beyond traditional investor relations — regulators, congressional staff, industry associations, customers, employees, communities. Financial PR firms running sophisticated work coordinate across all stakeholder layers simultaneously.
Who Hires a Financial PR Firm
Three buyer categories drive demand.
Emerging companies preparing for capital access. Pre-IPO companies, growth-stage companies preparing for major funding rounds, and adjacent organizations building toward capital markets access. These buyers engage financial PR firms to build the credibility, investor relations infrastructure, and broader communications architecture that supports capital access.
Established public companies. Mid-cap and large-cap public companies run continuous financial PR engagements — both with retained agencies handling ongoing work and with specialty firms handling specific transactions, crises, or capital markets events. Major public companies frequently run multiple financial PR relationships simultaneously across different functional areas.
Financial services firms operating reputational complexity. Private equity firms, hedge funds, investment banks, and adjacent financial services firms with regulatory exposure, public scrutiny, and institutional client communications engage financial PR firms for ongoing communications infrastructure.
How Financial PR Pricing Works
Financial PR engagements operate at higher pricing than generalist PR work. Category-specific expertise, regulatory exposure, and 24/7 availability requirements support pricing tiers the generalist market does not require.
Typical contemporary pricing:
- Project work (IPO communications, specific M&A transactions, crisis response) — $50,000–$500,000+ depending on complexity, duration, and firm tier
- Monthly retainer for emerging companies — $15,000–$50,000+ for ongoing work
- Monthly retainer for mid-cap public companies — $30,000–$100,000+ depending on scope
- Monthly retainer for large-cap public companies — frequently $75,000–$250,000+ for comprehensive ongoing work
- Senior-firm specialty work (Joele Frank, Brunswick Group, Sard Verbinnen / Edelman Smithfield) — higher pricing tiers, particularly for high-stakes M&A and crisis work
Pricing varies by geography, firm tier, scope, and the specific work required.
Top Financial PR Firms (As of 2026)
The contemporary financial PR firm landscape runs three tiers.
Tier 1 senior firms. Joele Frank (M&A communications specialist), Brunswick Group (global financial and corporate communications), Sard Verbinnen / Edelman Smithfield (financial and crisis communications now inside Edelman), Abernathy MacGregor, FGS Global (the WPP-owned financial and corporate communications firm formed through multiple consolidations). These firms run M&A, IPO, and high-stakes financial communications work.
Tier 2 financial specialists. Prosek Partners (Jen Prosek's financial services specialty), Stanton Public Relations & Marketing, Dukas Linden, KCSA Strategic Communications, ICR (growth-stage and emerging-public-company specialist), Kekst CNC, Gladstone Place Partners. These firms run financial PR across emerging, mid-cap, and adjacent contexts.
Major communications operations with financial practices. Firms including 5W AI Communications (financial communications alongside the broader AI Communications discipline), Edelman, Weber Shandwick, FleishmanHillard, Burson, Real Chemistry, MikeWorldWide, and adjacent major operations run financial communications across their broader practice.
EPR's Top Financial Services PR Agencies 2026 covers the firm landscape in greater depth. EPR's Financial PR category hub covers ongoing coverage of the discipline.
How to Evaluate a Financial PR Firm
Five criteria.
Category-specific track record. Has the firm operated well in the specific financial services category the buyer requires? IPO communications track record. M&A communications track record. Crisis communications track record. Buyers should evaluate against the specific work category they need, not general financial PR claims.
Senior team continuity. Financial PR runs on senior-level relationships and senior-level judgment under time pressure. Firms with senior team turnover produce inconsistent work. Firms with sustained senior team continuity produce better outcomes.
Regulatory and legal coordination capability. Financial PR work runs in coordinated context with securities counsel, regulatory counsel, and internal legal teams. Firms with experience operating this coordination produce better work than firms without it.
Crisis preparation infrastructure. Financial services brands face continuous crisis exposure. Firms with sustained crisis preparation infrastructure produce better crisis defense than firms running ad-hoc crisis response.
AI Communications and modern measurement capability. The 2026 financial PR discipline requires AI Communications capability. Firms running only traditional financial PR without AI engine measurement and GEO capability produce incomplete value in the contemporary environment.
Financial PR category hub · Top Financial Services PR Agencies 2026 · Crisis PR and Crisis Communications pillar · PR Agency Profiles Directory · How to Search for a Public Relations Firm in 2026 · EPR Citation Share Index · What Is Public Relations?
