Awards special

Celebrating the great and the good

December 2007

After four years at the splendid Gibson Hall in the heart of the City of London, we felt it was time for a change so this year’s awards dinner changed venues and moved to the equally classical surroundings of the Law Society.

As usual the awards are about recognising achievements rather than products or best lender and are divided into two distinct areas - individuals and financial institutions.

The awards for organisations are further separated into large lenders and small to medium-sized lenders. For the purposes of these awards large lenders are effectively those in the top 25 while small to medium-sized lenders are those with total assets or total mortgage balances outstanding of under £5 billion. In the past the categories were national lenders and regional/local lenders but in this day and age there are very few truly local or regional lenders left. Many small to medium-sized building societies and smaller specialist lenders are national as they operate through intermediaries and lend all over the country.

So how do the awards work? Well, the people who work within the mortgage industry nominate individuals and mortgage lending organisations they believe have gone that bit further than others or shown top qualities and great thinking.

A judging day then takes place where the winners and runners up are chosen by a panel of five judges. This year’s judges were Diana Wright of the Sunday Times; Bernard Clarke of the Council of Mortgage Lenders; Amanda Jarvis, editor of What Mortgage; Nia Williams, the publisher of Mortgage Finance Gazette; and Joanne Atkin, editor of Mortgage Finance Gazette.

MFG would like to thank the judges for their time and say a few words on the judging process. It was by no means an easy decision to pick the winners and the judges discussed and debated the merits of all the nominations. The judges are entirely independent with their own views. They look at the merits of each nomination individually and discuss as a group as to who will be the winners.

The Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards differ to others in that they acknowledge the achievements of individual people and mortgage lending companies rather than celebrating who is the Best Lender or who has the Best Mortgage. There are plenty of other magazines that do that, so Mortgage Finance Gazette is a little different.

We were delighted to welcome our guest speaker and presenter for the evening Nicholas Owen. In February Nicholas joined the BBC News after well over a decade with ITN where he hosted all ITN's major bulletins, including Channel Four News and News at Ten. He has also appeared in a wide range of other TV and radio programmes, including BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing in 2006.

From 1994 to 2000 Nicholas was Royal Correspondent for ITV News. In that capacity he played a major role in reporting on the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, for which ITN won an RTS Award. He compiled a book on her life entitled "Diana - The People's Princess."

Nicholas began his journalistic career on the Surrey Mirror in 1964, moving to Fleet Street in 1968, worked for the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. In 1981 he switched to television reporting, joining the BBC in the North of England. He told the awards audience: “Having lived in the north and north east I was delighted to see nominations and winners from that part of the country and to see all the good work you are doing.”

Mortgage Finance Gazette would like to thank all the sponsors for their support – PMI Europe, Cardif Pinnacle, LMS, WorkSmart, Excel Insurance Solutions, Unisys and Fiserv Europe.

Next year’s awards are due to be launched in the June issue of Mortgage Finance Gazette so look out for details. You have plenty of time to think about nominations for 2008 but you’ll be surprised as to how quickly they come round. Keep the awards in mind as you go about your daily business as we look forward to hearing about the amazing things you mortgage lenders do in the various categories – from community service, sponsorship, innovation and HR to individual achievements.