Chant West has cancelled its annual black-tie awards night, scheduled to be held, this year in conjunction with Conexus Financial, in Sydney on May 14. But the research firm will hold a virtual version of its awards through a live stream to highlight the achievements of the finalists and winners.

Brendan Burwood, Chant West managing director, announced on April 2, that the firm still wanted to acknowledge the “best of the best”. The winners in each category, will still be announced on May 14.

“We believe that this will be a very positive experience for Awards finalists and in the current climate, positive experiences are perhaps a little rarer than usual. We hope that you and your teams will be able to join in the webinar experience – even if it may be from the comfort of your home office,” he said.

“We will also be preparing an e-book with the speeches for each award to explain what sets apart the top three funds in each category. This will be the result of the detailed research we conduct as part of determining the awards results, which involves many meetings with super funds (mostly by video this year).

“In addition, we will be doing our usual press releases to make the broader consumer market aware of the results. Given the extreme volatility within investment markets we believe that helping consumers identify the best funds, and what they are doing to generate better long-term member outcomes, is vitally important at the moment.”

Details of the live stream will be provided closer to the date.

– G.B.