BT senior correspondent Ben Paul among winners at SGX Orb Awards

Singapore

BUSINESS Times senior correspondent Ben Paul has bagged an SGX (Singapore Exchange) Orb Award for his column on the Brooks Brothers bankruptcy.

The awards, in their third edition, recognise excellence in financial journalism and content, with this year's instalment focusing on the resilience of the economy and businesses in the past year.

The Singapore bourse said in a statement on Thursday: "As the Covid-19 pandemic brought uncertainties to global markets, international financial centres such as Singapore have gained prominence in facilitating the seamless exchange of capital across markets. Sustaining the growth of financial markets is part of securing the recovery of the broader economy."

Mr Paul's opinion piece, headlined "Brooks Brothers bankruptcy offers lessons on corporate resilience in the face of Covid-19", came out tops in the awards' "#Resilience" category - a special category for the year for entries that show how industry stakeholders are working to overcome this year's challenges to sustain growth, how they are recalibrating their expectations for the future, or how the post-pandemic financial landscape is shaping up.

Mr Paul, 51, joined BT in January after 17 years at The Edge Singapore - eight of them as its editor.

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He said: "It's an honour to be recognised with this SGX Orb Award. Covid-19 has shaped a lot of our reporting and commentaries at The Business Times this year."

He added: "The special '#Resilience' category is relevant to what we have been doing, and it's something that business leaders and investors are going to be concerned about for a long time to come."

Following a public vote on the shortlist of entries by a panel of independent judges, the winners of the five award categories were unveiled at SGX's annual media appreciation event held virtually on Wednesday.

Of Mr Paul's win, BT editor Wong Wei Kong said: "With his authoritative voice, Ben is no stranger to clinching awards and we're delighted he has continued his winning ways at BT. It's also a win for the BT newsroom, which has been tracking the impact of the pandemic on business with no let-up for most of the year."

The Orb Award for "Story of the Year" went to editor of Venture Views, Shiwen Yap, for his Medium post "2020 an inflection point for Singapore's equity markets & economy?".

Samantha Chiew from The Edge Singapore won "The Hidden Gem" category with her report "Food Empire records robust growth; declares higher dividend on better outlook".

In the "GoTo.com" category for financial bloggers and independent websites that give investors the information to make sound investing decisions, investment website The Fifth Person took the honours.

CNA's Pamela On was crowned the winner under "The Visual Treat" category for her video "Money Mind: Why is the yuan going digital?".

Other BT contenders for this year's awards included reporters Kelly Ng and Natalie Choy and graphic artist Gareth Chung for their infographic, "Banking amid a pandemic", which was entered in "The Visual Treat" category.