We are starting our deliberations for our annual Awards for Excellence, and would like to receive your nominations as to who deserves to be recognised, with the winners to be announced in conjunction with our annual joint conference with the ICMA Covered Bond Investor Council on 27 June.

The aim of The Covered Bond Report awards is to recognise those deals, institutions and initiatives that have been best in class or contributed to the development of covered bonds over the past year (starting from May 2017).

This means that although we are set to give out awards in categories such as “best lead manager” and “best deal”, we will ultimately base the number and selection of awards on who and what deserves to be recognised.

For example, we have not awarded a “best dollar house” in years when there has been only limited supply and no standout bank. And some activity defies categorisation but deserves to be recognised – witness Crédit Agricole’s package of a EUR3.25bn deal, tender and consent solicitation in 2016. Meanwhile, there may be an argument for this year recognising sterling activity, whether that be a deal, issuer and/or lead manager, given the pick-up in supply.

We nevertheless understand that pointers might be helpful, so here is a list of the kinds of categories we might typically consider or which might help your thinking:

• Issuer: issuance, transparency, investor relations
• Lead manager: euros, dollars and other currencies
• New issue: euros, dollars and other currencies
• Innovation, debut, pioneer…

The categories we designated last year and the respective winners can be found by clicking here.

As well as such more standard categories, we also reserve an Editor’s Award for recognising either market initiatives or contributions to the covered bond cause over a longer period of time.

So please let us have your nominations for what have simply been the standout achievements of the past year.

You can put forward yourselves and your deals, or others and their achievements – via e-mail or a phone call.

We already have several candidates in mind and over the next couple of weeks will be engaging with a broad cross-section of market participants to discuss the merits of these and other nominees. However, the ultimate winners will be decided by The Covered Bond Report.

Please contact managing editor Neil Day with your nominations or any questions: nday (at) coveredbondreport.com or on +44 20 7625 2175.

You can find out about and register for the conference here. We hope to see you there!