Pierre Ferragu & team, Sanford C. Bernstein
The buy side says: “They’re always the first to identify emerging trends.”
In first place for a second straight year is the Sanford C. Bernstein threesome guided by Pierre Ferragu, who “has a way of explaining drivers in the sector in an outstandingly entertaining manner, using philosophical aphorisms that often elicit a winning smile,” explains one ally. Notable calls of late include a November 2010 sell on Alcatel-Lucent, at €2.28, on the French company’s failure to keep pace with competitors in expanding its wireless network capabilities, and a December 2010 sell on BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, at $60.20, on margin pressure. Alcatel’s stock had plunged 46.9 percent, to €1.21, by year-end 2011, while Canada’s RIM plummeted 75.9 percent, to $14.50. Last year the London-based team focused on what it called a “seismic shift” in the mobile phone handset market and “its implications in terms of competitive dynamics and secondary effects such as the patent wars and the development of tablets,” says Ferragu, 37. “In 2012 we will continue to analyze the fast evolution of competitive dynamics in the mobile phone market and also spend time on how the next phase of development in the network equipment industry will shape up.”
