The only awards for European structured finance
decided by the market, for the market

The award winners are decided through a two-step process. The first stage of the process is the call for nominations. Using these nominations, the GlobalCapital editorial team will compile a shortlist in each category. This will be published in December and opened to voting by the market to choose the winners.

During the call for nominations, market participants are invited to put themselves, their colleagues, clients and peers forward to be shortlisted. When making your nominations, you should consider the organisations which have been involved in the most innovative or challenging transactions, the quality of execution and structuring; investment, growth, and progression in the business, or those who have stood out for the breadth and depth of their securitization franchises. Deal nominations should consider factors such as innovation, timing and reading of the market and reach among investors.

We encourage you to nominate widely outside of your own organisations, but you are also free to nominate your own deals and teams. You have two choices in each category, so if you are nominating your own organisation or deal, please also nominate a peer as a second choice. This is your opportunity to shape the shortlist, so consider your nominations carefully. You are welcome to share the survey link as broadly as you like, but we urge you to avoid ‘block voting’, in which every response form is identical.

Nominations should reflect firm and deal activity for the 2024 calendar year.

If you are nominating your own organisation or deal, we invite you to provide a short submission to support your nomination. This should be a maximum of one side of A4, detailing key accomplishments during the research period in relation to a given category. This may include standout deal work, innovations or improvements in your product or service offering, examples of growth, and work support to clients in unusual or demanding circumstances.

Differentiation is key and your submission should demonstrate how you have stood out from your competitors in your performance, what you offer to clients, or in your strategy. You may upload a single submission covering multiple categories or provide a separate submission for each relevant category in the survey. This information will be used exclusively for the purposes of the awards and will be kept confidential.

The survey will still form the basis for choosing the nominees, but submissions will be used in aggregate to help us compile a representative and credible shortlist in each category. Our awards research team may follow up on your submission with a short call.

• PITCHED AWARDS

In addition to the polled awards, we have three awards that are pitched: Overall Bank of the Year, Private Securitization of the Year and Overall Deal of the Year. If you would like to pitch, please get in touch with Sophie Astles.

Pitches will be held with the editorial team between October and January.

The Bank of the Year award will go to a bank that has demonstrated the breadth and depth of its securitization franchise, leadership in innovative or challenging transactions, and quality of execution and structuring. Feedback and endorsement from clients and counterparties, investment, growth and progression in the business will also be considered.

The Deal awards will recognise innovative or challenging transactions that have made a particularly strong impact on the market. This may include new deal structures, transactions that address new regulatory frameworks, first-in-kind deals or transactions that adapt existing technology to new markets or asset classes. The difficulty and intricacy of the innovation is assessed, as well as its likely market impact. GlobalCapital will consider the sophistication and complexity of the work and the impact of the innovation, as well as contextual challenges in execution.

These pitches will largely be on the record, and we will use information gathered in the process to justify our decisions in an eventual write-up. However, we are happy to take portions of the discussion off record, if you wish to highlight situations which illustrate your institution’s capabilities, but which were never made public.

The ultimate aim is that you should feel free to make the case for your institution as comprehensively as possible, across public and private aspects of securitization alike, without concern that confidential information will be circulated beyond GlobalCapital’s editorial team.

• LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT & OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION

These awards recognise individuals who have made huge contributions to the development of the market over the course of their careers, and who command universal respect among their peers. Previous winners have included Ian Bell of PCS, Laura Coady of Jefferies and Richard Hopkin of AFME.

This is a special award entirely at the discretion of GlobalCapital editorial. However, informal suggestions are welcome — please get in touch with Sophie Astles if you would like to make a recommendation.