Three is the magic number at the IR Magazine Awards – Europe 2018

Banco Santander, Iberdrola and Lanxess each took home three awards at last night’s black-tie event in London, while newcomer Borregaard took home the best overall investor relations award in the small-cap category. 

Click here to see the full list of winners from the IR Magazine Awards – Europe 2018.

The best of the European IR community gathered following the annual IR Magazine Think Tank – Europe to eat, drink and be merry as host Stephen K Amos revealed those companies named top for IR by the European investment community and those voted best across nine categories by this year’s six-strong team of judges.

Lanxess took two of the night’s most coveted awards – best overall investor relations (mid-cap) and best investor relations officer (small & mid-cap) for Oliver Stratmann – as well as being named best in the materials sector. 

Iberdrola also won the best overall investor relations gong – this time in the large-cap category – making it the second year in a row the Spanish utility has taken home one of the top awards of the night. The Bilbao-headquartered firm added best IR in Western Europe and best IR in the utilities sector to its trophy cabinet.

Rounding out the three for three was Banco Santander, another Spanish giant, which took home three awards in the awards-by-nomination categories. IR Magazine’s Europe 2018 judges – Heinrich Ey, co-CIO for European and German mid/small cap at Allianz Global Investors; Catherine James, former head of investor relations at Diageo; Nicholas Melhuish, head of global equities at Amundi; Nick Stansbury, fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management; Edouard Vecchioli, co-founder Parus Finance; and IR Magazine’s own Candice de Monts-Petit – rated Banco Santander top in the categories for best use of multimedia for IR, best IR during a corporate transaction and best investor event (an award won jointly with Hugo Boss).

Marco Delfrate and Andrea Tamagnini from Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo shared the gong for best investor relations officer (large cap). Rounding out the most coveted awards of the night was Norwegian biorefinery firm – and newcomer to the awards – Borregaard, which won the best overall investor relations award (small cap), despite having never even been nominated before.

The rising star award – given out to a newcomer to the profession – went to Georges Menane of Royal Dutch Shell for his winning over of the City, despite being based in the Netherlands and having no previous experience in IR. As one judge commented, Menane demonstrated a ‘clear and clean IR strategy based on knowledge, relationships and events, with many examples of success.’