The Globe and Mail’s Janet McFarland has won another award for her investigative reporting on an Ontario-based real-estate developer.
Ms. McFarland won first prize in the 2019 investment journalism awards run by the Portfolio Management Association of Canada.
Her story, Inside the Fall of Fortress, explored Fortress Real Developments Inc. and the continuing RCMP probe into the company. After months of interviews with industry players, regulators and insiders, the story unveiled the inner workings of an investment scheme that put hundreds of millions of dollars of investors’ money in jeopardy.
It’s the latest accolade for Ms. McFarland, who also won an award for real-estate reporting from the U.S. division of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) for the story, and took home SABEW’s Canadian Best In Business award for beat reporting. In addition, the story won her a gold award from the U.S. National Association of Real Estate Editors.
Globe investment reporter Tim Shufelt won third prize in the PMAC awards for his short stories on investing in the midst of volatile markets and ballooning corporate debt: Timing an Exit From Equities is a Tricky Matter, The Dark Side of Dividends: Ballooning Corporate Debt and Check In, Freak Out: Real-time Portfolio Tracking Can be ‘a Double-edged Sword.'
Mining reporter Niall McGee won honourable mention for Why Investors are Shunning Gold, which explored the many reasons for gold’s diminished profile as an attractive investment.
“The submissions hit the mark this year with exceptionally well-researched articles on a variety of complex topics that collectively helped foster a better understanding of the investment industry,” PMAC president Katie Walmsley said. “Our independent panel of judges selected the articles of three winning journalists and two honourable mentions that stood out as topical, compelling and educational.”
In its eighth year, PMAC’s annual competition was created to recognize outstanding investment journalism that improves the financial literacy of Canadians.