< The 2014 All-Europe Research Team Didier Scemama & team Bank of America Merrill Lynch First-place appearances: 3
Total appearances: 37
Team debut: 1986 This year the Technology/Semiconductors and Telecommunications Equipment categories are rolled into one new sector, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s quartet comes out of nowhere to seize second place; the firm has not appeared on either previous roster since 2011. London-based team leader Didier Scemama — “the best stock picker in the market covering semis and tech hardware,” one booster declares — joined the firm in 2012 from Royal Bank of Scotland, whose crew he guided to a runner-up finish that year. His squad has broadened its coverage from seven names to 12 over the past year and garners plaudits for its flexibility and willingness to “reverse course quickly if necessary,” as another client says. The researchers’ tracking of Alcatel-Lucent is a particular standout, money managers report. “We prefer communications equipment over semiconductors,” says Scemama, “as we think the equipment sector is going through an attractive combination of cyclical recovery and cost-cutting, restructuring, disposals.” They therefore recommend France’s Alcatel and Finland’s Nokia Corp. over Sweden’s Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson. In June they urged investors to buy Alcatel’s stock, crediting management’s restructuring plan, an expected cyclical recovery and the company’s attractive valuations. The shares soon escaped their range-bound trading, and by the end of the year, they had soared 131.2 percent, to €3.25. “In the semis space,” the team leader adds, “our preference goes for quality names like ARM [Holdings] and ASML [Holding] over more cyclically exposed names like STMicroelectronics and Infineon [Technologies].”