< The 2015 Latin America Research Team
Total appearances: 2
Team debut: 2014Jonathan Brandt leads his HSBC twosome to third place, improving on the team’s runner-up showing in its debut appearance last year. Based in New York, the analysts report on seven Latin American pulp and paper names. Money managers especially value their coverage of Brazil’s Fibria Celulose, a leading producer of short-fiber pulp. In June 2013, Brandt and his colleague turned bullish on the shares, then trading at 24.75 reais, crediting the company’s leading position as the worldwide low-cost producer of pulp for uncoated paper. By the middle of last month, Fibria Celulose’s stock had rocketed by 40.05 reais, advancing 77.1 percent during the preceding 12 months alone and outperforming the regional sector by 32.4 percentage points over that period. “They were one of the first to identify a great rally,” marvels one fund manager in New York. Another supporter praises the duo’s “global vision.” Brandt will be relocating to Boston in September. He has tracked this sector for HSBC since joining the firm in February 2010. Previously, he worked on the buy side at Putnam Investments, where he was an emerging-markets equity analyst. The 35-year-old researcher earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Connecticut’s Wesleyan University.
