The Covered Bond Report has begun deliberations for its Awards for Excellence 2025, ahead of revealing the winners at our conference in Frankfurt on 26 June, so please let us know who is deserving of recognition.

The winners will be announced at a drinks reception to close the 12th 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-2025-covered-bond-investor-conference

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 for Excellence is to recognise those deals, institutions and initiatives that have been best in class or contributed to the development of covered bonds over the preceding year – for 2025, the eligibility period is 10 May 2024 to 16 May 2025).

Our choice of recipients will, as ever, be driven by looking for 10 to 12 of the best achievements and contributions across the market, rather than by selecting winners from predetermined categories. For example, while we have rewarded US dollar deals in the past, we might not do so if this year’s crop of deals in such a field does not reach the heights of previous years and/or have been surpassed by achievements in other areas that are more deserving of recognition or have represented a more significant part of the market – last year, for example, we recognised an issuer that had stood out in the quality of its execution at the long end of the curve.

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

● Deal of the year: overall; by currency; by region; debut

● ESG, innovation, structuring, liquidity

● Comeback issue, breakout lead manager, pioneer…

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

https://news.coveredbondreport.com/2024/06/the-cbr-2024-awards-for-excellence-our-winners/

We reserve an Editor’s Award with the possibility of 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 23 May at the very latest.

We are particularly keen to receive early input relating to institutions further afield to help ensure that, where appropriate, they can make it to Frankfurt to collect awards in person.

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!

Photo: Novo Banco receiving Best Debut in June 2024; Credit: Wonge Bergmann