How your fund enters the IPE Awards

HOW TO ENTER THE COMPETITION

Copenhagen, Thursday 29 November 2012

Every pension fund in Europe is eligible to enter the IPE Awards.

Every fund must go through the same entry process. We have made this process as simple as possible through our online system

Nomination:
For each country where we offer an IPE Country Award we ask different areas of the local pensions industry to nominate those pension funds they believe should be considered for an IPE Award. IPE will approach all funds nominated in this way and request that they enter the Awards via our standard entry process.

Country/Regional Awards:
All funds entering the IPE Awards are automatically put forward for the Best Pension Fund in their country: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom plus the regional awards for Central & Eastern Europe or Small Countries. 

The Country Award winner and the runner-up in each country/region go through to the Gold/Silver awards.

Themed/Bronze Awards plus the NEW Gold Award for Long-Term Investment Strategy:
Pension funds have the choice of entering the specialist IPE Themed and Bronze Awards plus the NEW Gold Award for Long-Term Investment Strategy. The Bronze Awards are for investment in Alternatives, Equities and Fixed Income. The Themed Awards are subject to change year on year due to trends in the market. Last year they included: Commodities, DB/DC Structuring, Emerging Markets, ESG/Corporate Governance, Hedge Funds, In-house Investment/Pension Fund Owned Asset Manager, Innovation, Portfolio Construction, Risk Management Solutions, Real Estate and Specialist Investment Managers. The Gold Award for Long-Term Investment Strategy can also be entered for in the same way.

Funds can enter for as many of these Awards as they wish. There are check boxes in the Entry Form to choose which Awards you wish to enter. Then there follows a special section in the entry form for the fund to describe its expertise in each category entered.

Best Small Pension Fund (€1bn or less) Award:
All pension funds with under €1bn in assets that enter the Country or Themed/Bronze Awards are also judged for the Best Small European Pension Fund Award. It has happened that a small-sized fund, which has not won a Country or Themed/Bronze Award, has gone on not only to win the Best Small European Pension Fund Award but also other European level awards (such as Best Corporate) and then progress to win the overall Best European Pension Fund Award!

Online Entry
The entry form is completed online – all you need to do is go to the IPE Awards website www.ipe.com/awards  and click the link to Enter for an Award. In brief, for the IPE Country Awards we ask pension funds for a short description of the fund's objectives and strategy, with some headline figures. We also require funds to give a short update on any action taken in their pensions investment strategy. We ask funds to describe in more detail an area where they feel the fund has done something special and made its mark or excelled so as to highlight its expertise and achievements.

Confidentiality of entries
At the request of the pension funds entering for an Award, IPE will keep the identity of pension funds entering the IPE Awards confidential, only disclosing the names of winners or runners-up. The entry details that a winning pension fund has submitted will be used to prepare the full description that appears in the IPE Awards Supplement that is distributed each year on the evening at the Awards and with the next copy of IPE.

How are the IPE Awards judged?
All the entries for a particular country, themed, bronze or the New Gold Award are made available online to each judge for that Award. They review and score each entry independently. Their scores are forwarded to IPE to determine the winner and runners-up. If there are pension funds with equal top scores, IPE's practice is to present the award to both funds. If no fund's entry reaches a sufficient standard in the view of the judges no award is presented.

There are two IPE European Awards that are awarded purely through a nomination process, with the resulting shortlist voted on by IPE readers. These are:
 - Outstanding Industry Contribution
 - Pension Fund Personality of the Year

Up to 100 judges can be involved in the IPE awards. We have a local panel of judges for each Country Award, for Central & Eastern European and for Smaller Countries.

Each Themed, Bronze and the NEW Gold Award has its own panel of judges, who are experts in that category and usually based throughout Europe. A separate panel of judges considers entries for the Smaller European Pension Fund Award, as this needs to comprise judges based in different countries to give an all-round assessment.

A special panel of judges is assembled for the European Silver and Gold Awards. This is the largest panel and includes a number of judges who have been judging this award since inception. They each review and mark the entries again, without taking into account how the entry was scored at the Country or Themed/Bronze Award stage.

The judges' view is final and no correspondence or contact between judges and entrants is entertained.

It is inevitable in a business such as ours that conflicts of interest can occur at the judging stage. We rely on our judges to make sure that such factors do not influence their views, but if a serious conflict were to emerge the judge involved would discuss the matter with IPE and probably excuse themselves from judging that particular entry.

WHY ENTER & GUIDELINES

A Swedish fund, which had won a number of Awards over a number of years, said that while winning had very positive results in terms of public relations and human resources, “the real value was in our relations with our members”.

A UK-based fund reckoned that winning shows what is innovative about what the fund is doing. In their case, winning had benefits for relations with the fund’s sponsors and internally it was very good for morale. “Our staff like the recognition that they are doing a good job.”

An Italian winner said that receiving an IPE Award had been helpful for them in getting their message across.  “You collect something you can show.”

HELPFUL POINTS TO ENTER:

Judges and past Awards winners give their views on how best to go about entering your funds in the IPE European Pension Funds Awards:

1.    The format of the IPE Awards asks entrants to submit in 600 words details of an activity in which they have excelled during the 18 months period of January 2010 to June 2011.  This is deliberately left open so as to encourage entrants to think widely about what could be the subject matter of an award entry. Any aspect of pension funds’ operations from investment and benefits to structure and governance can be included.

2.    One important point from the judges was that the activity should be something, as one put it, that made the fund ‘stand out from the crowd’, regarding either the topic (for example, the investment process) or how it was implemented.

3.    Also important was that the fund should give an explanation as to what they saw as their real achievement in the area in which they excelled.

4.    They should set out their intended objectives and how they were achieved.  Also, if there were any difficulties or objections how these were overcome could be described.

5.    They should be as factual as possible as to how they present their case, for example by giving figures as to performance, cost savings, risk reduction etc, if possible.

6.    Probably (in most, but certainly not in all cases), it was felt that where the fund had achieved something already, this would count for more in the judges’ eyes than an entry that focussed on everything being planned for the future.

7.    It was important to remember that entries for the Themed and European level Awards would be looked at by judges outside your own country, so you should make sure that the achievements you are writing about are explained in such a way that they can be appreciated by someone outside your own country. So if some developments relating to your fund relate to an issue such as high interest rates or lack of a bond market that is particular to your country, this needs to be explained so that non-local judges understand.

8.    The judges stressed the need to explain things in as straightforward a way as possible, with technical words being included as appropriate. The danger with too technical descriptions is that not all judges may be able to understand exactly what the fund is saying.

9.    Be aware of focusing on topical, fashionable or ‘hot’ issues instead of picking on some more day-to-day issue that your fund really tackled well and so could make a strong entry topic for your fund.

10.     It is quite in order to enter a topic again that you have submitted in a previous year, which you consider is still important and relevant, but of course the information relating to it would need to be updated.
 

RULES, TERMS & CONDITIONS

RULES
•    It would assist IPE tremendously if you enter the awards in English but you may enter using your own language. All entries will be treated equally whether in English or another language.
•    There is no limit to the number of entries per fund.
•    The IPE Awards is open to all pension funds and group retirement savings plans based in European countries.
•    The closing date for entries is September 5th.
•    Entries must be submitted online using the official entry form.  A supporting document can be uploaded and will be made available to the judges.

TERMS & CONDITIONS
•    The judges’ decision will be final. IPE will not enter into any correspondence regarding any aspect of the judging process.
•    If your entry is either short-listed for an award or wins an award you automatically give IPE the right to publish all or part of your entry.
•    IPE will not publish the names nor publish any part of the entry of those funds which enter the awards but are not short-listed or do not win.
•    Each fund must provide IPE with a copy of their logo (if they have one) regardless of whether they are either short-listed for or win an award. IPE will only use the logos for those funds which are either short-listed for an award or win an award.
•    Logos must be supplied high resolution (300dpi) in the following formats: jpeg, tiff, eps.
•    IPE will not inform in advance those entries which are either short-listed for an award or win an award. The winners for all categories, as well as those short-listed for silver and gold awards will be announced for the first time at the IPE Awards 2011 held in Brussels on November 17th 2011.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How does IPE select the judges?
Many of the judges have been involved since the first IPE Awards in 2001. We originally approached a mixture of local and international consultants based on their reputation. Since 2001, several consultants have approached IPE and asked if they can be included and we have agreed. Our view is that the more judges there are the better the judging process will be.

Why are consultants asked to be the judges – why not pension funds?
Generally speaking, consultants have a good overview of the standards of pension funds in their country based on their exposure to a range of clients. We prefer not to ask pension funds to judge because they might feel unable to enter their own funds for the awards.

Are consultants biased towards their own clients?
Consultants usually refuse to judge entries submitted by their own clients. They judge the entries of pension funds who use other consultants and those who do not use consultants. IPE believes that the vast majority of consultants are professional enough not to allow any bias into the judging process.

How can judges compare entries from large and small funds presenting distinctly differing processes?
There has to be a certain amount of subjective analysis. It simply is not possible to create a purely quantitative scoring system which will identify the best pension fund in any one market or the best example of a particular strategy. One of the reasons that IPE asks local consultants to be judges on a market-by-market basis is because they are best placed to make an intelligent judgement based on their local expertise.

Why don’t you publish the full results of the judging process?
From the very start, pension funds have told IPE that they do not want publicity if they enter but do not win an Award. Because of this, we decided to keep entries confidential and only publish the names of those who have won or been short-listed for an Award. There may come a time when the majority of pension funds will be prepared to enter the IPE Awards openly but we will continue to respect their requirement for anonymity for the foreseeable future.

How many funds can I enter?
Many corporations and some public sector funds are responsible for managing more than one pension fund. You may, for instance, have a primary defined benefit fund and a newer defined contribution fund. Or you may be managing different company funds within one group. You may enter as many of these funds as you wish (at either Country and/or Themed/Bronze Award level - plus at Gold level for the NEW Best Long-term Investment Strategy Award) so long as you take care to explain the differences. However, we will not accept multiple entries from insurance companies running institutional insured funds.

Can I enter using my own language?
Yes. The IPE Awards has always allowed pension funds to enter using their own language because all the Country Awards are judged by local consultants. Winning entries are then translated into English for the European judges who come from a variety of countries. However, it will greatly assist IPE if you enter in English because we also have to translate the entries into English for the Themed Awards.