The road to the grand finale of the first IPE-Awards has been travelled and come to a successful outcome. The intention has always been to provide a suitable forum to acknowledge the achievements of those running Europe’s pension funds. We believe we have fulfilled that mission and that we have found worthy recipients of the awards at both country and European level. We congratulate all our winners heartily
Our particular congratulations go to the four winners at the European level on the investment strategy side to ABP, the giant fund of the civil service community in the Netherlands and VKG/CPM the fund for doctors, dentists and pharmacists in Belgium. The ABP fund is as large as you can get in European pensions, while VKG/CPM is one of the smaller funds to enter the awards. We feel there is a message here.
On the fund structure and administration awards, the two winners are Belgacom and the Diageo fund in the UK. So Belgium can be doubly proud that two of its front- running players have scooped prizes.
Anyone who had the privilege and the daunting task of judging the 25 country awards winners’ submissions to decide on the ultimate European-level winners will be able to vouch as to the high level of the entries and the invidious decision as to who were winners. In the end, the results were close but not in doubt.
A taste of these submissions and the reactions of those who won at country level are given in this supplement, which we think makes informative and indeed educational reading. It is a unique series of features about the aspirations and the drive of those running European pension arrangements. There can be no doubts as to the seriousness of their intent and the levels of their professionalism. That is the common uniting theme that comes through, as frequently, the environments in which they operate can be very different.
And that is precisely what the awards are designed to recognise and to share across the European scene. A note that was struck constantly in the short interviews we conducted with the winners at country level was the desire to have a benchmark by which to compare their total performance. IPE and those who sponsored the awards believe that these first awards are a very important step in that direction. And we are aware that there is undoubtedly much more to accomplish here in the future, without for a moment detracting from the achievements of those who won.
But we also want to pay tribute to those who entered and did not win at any level. These funds were willing to submit themselves to a degree of scrutiny that otherwise they would not have had to undergo, believing that the exercise was beneficial. We thank them for that and acknowledge their sense of adventure. All we can suggest is that they do not hesitate in putting themselves down for next year’s awards.
In addition to the pension funds who participated, we must thank those sponsors who took the leap of faith with IPE that such an event was feasible and more importantly worth doing. We think that the outcome has justified this commitment.
We also thank the judges at both levels. The country judges, who chose the winners at their domestic market level, are listed along with their European level colleagues, on page 9. Their ready agreement to put themselves in the firing line by judging their peers and their generous support of the initiative are deeply appreciated.
We hope that IPE readers will find within these pages, some ideas that will prove useful transplants into their own professional lives. Perhaps some will resolve now to enter the awards next year, as they believe that what they are achieving in their own fund is as good as or if not better than anything they see here! When this happens, then we know that we are really achieving the objectives of the awards.
Fennell Betson

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