Update: To ensure that we can be as thorough and fair as possible, we are extending our awards discussions and deliberations by a week and will now be announcing our winners by 9 July – thank you for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience. Our original notification of the awards process remains below.

We are commencing our deliberations for our 2021 Awards for Excellence and are therefore seeking your nominations and input over the coming weeks, ahead of announcing our winners online at the end of 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 (1 June 2020-31 May 2021).

Our choice of winners will, as previously, be driven by looking for the 10 to 12 greatest accomplishments or contributors across the market, rather than by sticking to predetermined categories. For example, due to the lack of peripheral issuance in the past 12 months, we are unlikely to name a “best peripheral deal” this year, but may nonetheless recognise issuers from the relevant countries for their achievements in an appropriate, potentially new category.

Awards in traditional categories such as “best lead manager” and “deal of the year” are likely to remain, so here is a list of the types of categories/activities we have previously considered and might ultimately recognise, which may serve as a helpful guide for your thinking and nominations:

●  Issuer: issuance, investor relations

●  Lead manager: euros, dollars and other currencies

●  New issue: by currency; debut; comeback

●  ESG, innovation, structuring, liquidity, pioneer…

Last year’s winners and their respective award titles can be found here.

We also reserve an Editor’s Award for recognising either market initiatives or contributions to the covered bond cause by an individual or institution in the past year or over a longer period of time.

So please let us have your nominations regarding who or what deserves to be recognised for excellence in the covered bond market in the past year.

You can put forward yourselves and your deals, or others and their achievements – via e-mail or a phone call – by 18 June at the latest.

Over the coming weeks we will be engaging with a broad cross-section of market participants to discuss the merits of candidates. 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@coveredbondreport.com or +44 20 7483 4633.

We are announcing our winners online due to again being unable to hold our annual conference with ICMA in Frankfurt, but hopefully will be able to return in person in 2022.