This year the competition attracted a new record of 104 entries, many including two or three features, submitted by more than 50 journalists. It is the only award in South Africa that rewards quality reporting related to investment and personal finance issues.

“In a tough economic environment investors and consumers are often bewildered by the seemingly constant flow of bad news affecting returns, making it difficult to make the appropriate decisions regarding their money. Our aim with this award is to encourage exceptional reporting about these matters that can ensure consumers and investors are well-informed before making choices about investments or other money issues,” said Citadel CEO Neil Brown.

“The leading contenders for awards always stand out, but the judges reported a particularly tough judging process this year. For more than one category they asked for extra time to re-look at the entries before selecting winners. The difficult choices they had to make also reflects in the larger than usual number of finalists chosen in each category,” Brown said.

Van Rooyen scored well in all the categories for which he submitted entries. His features about the drawn-out Sharemax saga, which dominated investment coverage in the media in 2011, as well as his articles about investments in property syndications secured him the overall prize.

Lindo Xulu, now with the Financial Mail, made history by becoming the first journalist to win the Chairman’s award for investigative journalism for two years consecutively. His winning entries about the collapse of the Wendy Machanik estate agency were published on the web publication Moneyweb.

Several other features published on Moneyweb were selected as finalists, confirming that media company’s reputation for quality journalism. Moneyweb’s other wins were in the Newcomer of the Year category for work by Phakamisa Ndzamela (now at Business Day) and in the Breaking News: Electronic category for features by Malcolm Rees.

Sake24 journalists also won in the categories Breaking News: Print with entries by Elma Kloppers and in the hotly-contested Consumer Education category for articles by Niel Joubert. Business Times’ Brendan Peacock was also awarded a winner’s certificate in the Consumer Education category.

Bruce Whitfield, overall winner in 2009 and regular victor across all categories in this competition, was selected as the winner in the Analysis and Opinion category for columns and opinion pieces about the economic meltdown and investment lessons to be learnt from history.

The Carte Blanche team, known for their dedicated journalism and well-crafted features, again took a number of prizes – this time in the categories Best Feature and Breaking News: Electronic.

The judges for the 2012 award were Godfrey Nti, CEO of the Financial Planning Institute (FPI) and a long-serving member of the judging panel; FPI board member Advocate Sankie Morata; respected journalist Michael Coulson; and Professor Pippa Green, head of the journalism department at the University of Pretoria.