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Alfred Dy & team
CLSA
First-Place Appearances: 6

Total Appearances: 11

Team Debut: 2000

CLSA’s squad under the guidance of Alfred Dy, 48, is “one of the few teams with the diligence to produce original, stand-alone reports from the Philippines daily,” declares one investor in Hong Kong. That service in combination with the analysts’ “good understanding of how the macroeconomic picture relates to individual shares,” as another portfolio manager puts it, helps earn this group its sixth consecutive first-place finish on this roster. Four team members are based in Manila and one works out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; together they track 37 Philippine companies. A recent addition is Megaworld Corp. They resumed coverage of the Manila-based real estate developer in June 2013, assigning the stock a buy rating. Management was cutting costs through vertical consolidation, they explained, and planned to tap capital markets to raise funds for expansion. Moreover, the nation’s largest office developer and landlord already enjoyed a strong recurrent revenue stream. As of late April, Megaworld’s shares had shot up 50 percent, to 4.59 pesos, besting the Philippine broad market’s performance by 38.4 percentage points. Going forward, the researchers are sticking with Universal Robina Corp. Favored for the past few years, the Manila-based foods producer has slashed its debt burden by liquidating noncore assets, they note, and enjoys rising domestic demand. Over the 12 months through late April, its stock leaped 27 percent, to 147.10 pesos, while the broad market inched down 1.5 percent. Dy and his colleagues expect Universal Robina to continue to outperform, maintaining a price objective of 168 pesos. “They are unafraid to stick their necks out,” a third advocate says.