THE Scotsman has been named as Regional Financial Newspaper of the year in the prestigious Association of British Insurers (ABI) Financial Media awards for 2006.
Judges praised it for providing "a good balance between industry and personal finance issues" at the event attended by 400 representatives from the financial services industry in London's Dorchester Hotel.
Martin Flanagan, The Scotsman's city edi
tor, was himself shortlisted in the Business Journalist of the Year category for his "authoritative and balanced reporting". And John Bowker, until recently deputy city editor, was shortlisted for Regional Financial Newspaper or Journalist of the year.
It is the second major award for the section this year - in May our then personal finance editor, Jennifer Hill, was named Regional Journalist of the Year at the Headlinemoney awards.
It has been a flagship year for the paper's Scottish and UK financial coverage.
Edinburgh life and pensions giant Standard Life - finally - went the way of other UK mutuals and listed on the London stock market.
Royal Bank of Scotland continued its meteoric rise through the world banking ranks, helped by its dramatic recent £900 million investment in the Bank of China. And rival HBOS has emerged as a lead player in some of the UK's biggest corporate finance deals, as well as maintaining its stranglehold of the UK mortgage market.
Flanagan recently drew widespread attention after exclusively identifying that Scotland PLC was nursing an aggregate pensions deficit of £5 billion, with hundreds of thousands of Scottish staff caught up in the cash squeeze.
The ABI's 400 corporate members speak for more than 20 per cent of British shares and cover 94 per cent of the UK insurance industry.
"This is strong recognition of what we are achieving, from one of the biggest industry groups in the financial services sector - a sector that is more than ever driving our economy forward," said Bill Jamieson, executive editor of The Scotsman.
"Martin Flanagan, our city editor, is a vital link in London for all major public companies seeking to reach a pan-Scottish audience.
"And our Scottish business team in Edinburgh, under business editor Nick Bevens, is committed to building on its strengths in business and financial sector coverage, with up-to-the-minute news, commentary on corporate issues and analysis of economic and market trends.
"Central to this award has been the development of our reader-friendly personal finance section, with its weekly advice on savings and investments, first under Jennifer Hill and now by her equally-able successor, Rosemary Gallagher.
"This is a recognition on which we firmly intend to build on behalf of our readers."
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