Sean Holmes, Natalia Smirnova & team
Deutsche Bank
First-place appearances: 1

Total appearances: 4

Team debut: 2011

Sean Holmes in Johannesburg and Moscow-based Natalia Smirnova steer their five-strong Deutsche Bank crew back up to second place on this lineup after a year at No. 3. The group, which also advances from runner-up to the No. 2 position on the Consumer/Discretionary list, reports on 42 regional consumer shares, earning plaudits for their ground work. Deutsche’s analysts visit the stores of the companies under their coverage and report back to clients with their impressions and photographs of the sites. “This is helpful for investors that are not based in Russia and thus might have a limited understanding on how the local retail experience looks from the consumer’s perspective,” says one portfolio manager. Two Russian retailers, Dixy Group and Lenta, are among the group’s top picks for this year. That country’s “food retail continues to perform strongly in 2014,” says Smirnova, “and so far it seems that food retailers in Russia are able to pass inflation on to consumers, which is positive for top-line growth.” Dixy is Russia’s third-largest food retailer, and she and her colleagues favor it as a turnaround story with a cheap valuation. They have assigned the stock, which was trading at 379 rubles in late May, a price objective of 432 rubles. Hypermarket chain operator Lenta, they believe, is on track to beat consensus sales growth forecasts for 2014. The researchers project a 28.6 percent upside to the global depositary receipts’ $10.50 value at the end of May. They are less sanguine on the outlook for Poland’s food retailers. “The situation is tougher there,” Smirnova notes, “as we see a price war between major players, which is negatively affecting average ticket growth and margins.”