Eduardo Lecubarri & team
J.P. Morgan Cazenove
The five-member J.P. Morgan Cazenove crew repeats in second place. Piloted by Eduardo Lecubarri in London, the researchers “do the hard work and make your stock-picking easier,” asserts one Madrid-based portfolio manager. The performance drivers of 2012 are “still very much in place today, resulting in another year of positive returns for European small and midcaps,” Lecubarri predicts. (European small and midcaps surged 18 percent in 2012, 6.2 percentage points better than the broad market.) The team is urging clients to overweight stocks in peripheral countries, because Italy, Portugal and Spain “have still not reacted to the improving credit outlook of their sovereigns,” he says. Small caps are preferable to midcaps, the team leader adds, because they offer “better value, as they have been left behind in the equity rally.” The researchers also tout shares with “stable growth that is still not commanding a premium,” he says. Examples include two U.K.-based outfits, retailer Debenhams and security services provider G4S. Lecubarri is “an outstanding ‘investor’ who happens to work as a strategist,” cheers one asset manager in London. “His calls make us money.” — Carolyn Koo