The Covered Bond Report is commencing deliberations for our Awards for Excellence and we are therefore seeking nominations ahead of announcing the winners in Frankfurt on 6 June.

The winners will be announced at a drinks reception to close the 11th annual Covered Bond Investor Conference, jointly hosted with ICMA and the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) at the Meliá Frankfurt City – conference details can be found here, with a link to the registration page:

https://www.icmagroup.org/events/the-covered-bond-investor-conference-2/

The conference is free to attend and open to all interested market participants – we hope to see you there!

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 (14 May 2023-10 May 2024).

Our choice of winners will, as previously, be driven by looking for 10 to 12 of the best achievements and contributions across the market, rather than by sticking to predetermined categories. For example, while we have rewarded US dollar and innovative deals in the past, we might not do so if this year’s crop of deals in those fields do not reach the heights of previous years and/or have been surpassed by achievements in other areas that are more deserving of recognition.

We therefore encourage you to let us know which deals and institutions deserve to be recognised and why, irrespective of their categorisation and however obvious or niche. At the same time, we understand that some pointers would be helpful, so the types of categories/activities we have previously considered and might recognise again this year include:

● Best euro issuer, best global issuer, most impressive issuer

● Lead manager: euros, dollars or other currencies

● New issue/deal of the year: by currency; by region; debut; comeback

● ESG, innovation, structuring, liquidity, pioneer…

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

https://news.coveredbondreport.com/2023/06/the-cbr-2023-awards-for-excellence-our-winners/

We 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 a longer period of time.

You can put forward yourselves and your deals, or others and their achievements – via e-mail and/or a phone call – by 10 May at the very latest.

We will over the coming weeks engage 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.

Thank you for your interest and good luck!