AsianInvestor unveils Institutional Excellence Awards
AsianInvestor today announces a new set of awards designed to recognise excellence and best practice among institutional investors across Asia Pacific.
It is the first time AsianInvestor has launched an awards process dedicated to asset owners, a group encompassing many of the region’s biggest and most sophisticated investors.
These awards are open to all institutional investors across Asia Pacific, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, insurance companies and other official institutions – large or small.
As a consequence, AsianInvestor will fold the long-running Service Provider Awards into our awards for investment performance, which take place in May each year. Further details will be available in due course.
For our Institutional Excellence Awards we have weighted four areas of qualitative judgment. The aim is to understand and compare tangible progress as an investing entity, rather than to pick winners based on arbitrary snapshots of fund performance.
The awards nomination process starts today and runs until Friday, September 5. There are several ways to apply and all submissions are treated in strict confidence.
All institutions listed in AsianInvestor’s annual ranking of the top 300 asset owners will be invited to nominate themselves, and smaller institutions are also encouraged to apply.
For self-nominations, send an email to [email protected] outlining why you think you deserve recognition. No self-nominations will be made public.
We also welcome nominations from third parties, including fund managers, consultants, custodians and other organisations. Again, please submit your nomination to [email protected].
AsianInvestor has designed a questionnaire around key qualitative factors to ensure a uniform approach to each asset owner. This explains the information we are looking for and details our weighting scheme. Institutions and nominators are welcome to write to [email protected] to obtain a copy. Asset size is not a criteria.
Nominees may either fill in the questionnaire, as mentioned above, or we can schedule an interview by phone or in person. Requesting the questionnaire will at least let you know what information we require.
The interview process will be a brief, off-record discussion with nominees related to our awards criteria.
AsianInvestor’s editorial team may also shortlist asset owners at its own discretion.
AsianInvestor will invite a panel of experienced industry participants to provide feedback on responses we have gathered through nominations or our own research. They will act as a de facto judging panel and will remain anonymous.
In all there are 20 awards, as follows:
Market awards:
Institutional Excellence (across organisation type) in each of 14 markets: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Asia Pacific awards:
Pension fund (public)
Pension fund (corporate)
Insurance company
Sovereign wealth fund
Central bank reserves management
Other institution (endowments, family offices, post office or other official institution)
The nomination process will run until September 5. Thereafter our journalists will shortlist asset owners and interview them. We will announce the winners in the week starting October 20.
All of the winners will be invited to attend our Institutional Excellence Awards dinner on Thursday, December 3 in Singapore. Photos of the event and detailed explanations of the reasons for our choices will appear in the February 2015 edition of AsianInvestor magazine.