< The 2015 All-Asia Research TeamErica Poon Werkun & teamUBSFirst-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 12

Team debut: 2003The UBS analysts under the direction Erica Poon Werkun reclaim the No. 3 position on this lineup after spending the past two years at runner-up. Numbering 15 people, they are stationed throughout the region, working from offices in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Together the group monitors 154 regional consumer companies. “Erica and her team have been especially helpful on maintaining a level of caution in their view of retail and department store recoveries in China,” one portfolio manager relates. “While others have been keen to say that ‘the worst is over,’ they have insisted that good news is still far away. This has helped us stay short on a sector that has moved from riches to rags.” For their part, Werkun and her cohorts have been advising that different subsectors in their purview have been diverging in their performance. Regarding China’s discretionary consumer space, for example, “we remain cautious on the department store and footwear sectors,” she reports, “due to overcapacity and competition from other retail formats such as shopping malls and e-commerce.” One industry the researchers believe will buck the trend and outperform, however, is China’s sportswear.